lf
starved child! What would you do? Her family was not well known in our
village; they had moved here from Paris a short time before the war and
were said to have been wealthy people who had fallen into misfortune.
So after a time, it may not seem kind, but life has been too hard some
of the days even for kindness, so finally we left the little girl alone.
Neighbors have given her food when there was food to give. Even a few of
the enemy soldiers have sometimes tried to make friends and persuade her
to eat, but always she would rush away from them with the great fear."

Not altogether sure of what the old French peasant was trying to make
plain to her, yet convinced enough of the tragedy of the story, Sonya
laid her hand on the old woman's arm.

"Don't you think we had best not frighten the little girl then by trying
to enter her house. Some one else in the village I feel sure will offer
us hospitality. And yet something should be done for the little girl,
now the war is past she must be made to understand she need not be
afraid," Sonya expostulated.

However, the French woman continued knocking.

She also had been calling out in French, reassuring the little girl
inside, pleading with her. "La petite Louisa."

And now Sonya heard footsteps drawing near the closed door. The next
moment the door partly opened, disclosing the most pathetic child's
figure she had ever seen.

The little girl was perhaps twelve years old and did not look like the
usual French child, for though her hair was coal black, her eyes were a
violet blue, fringed by the blackest lashes, her skin almost an
unearthly pallor. In spite of her look of hunger she was clean and not
only scrupulously, but exquisitely dressed in a little silk and serge
frock made with care and taste.

The child's eyes were what held Sonya, however, they were at once so
terrified and so sad.

Looking past the two women at the crowd outside, she would have fallen
except that Sonya's arm went swiftly around her while she tried to
explain that they were friends.

Afterwards Sonya and the Red Cross nurses discovered that the little
house was furnished very differently from the ordinary French
farmhouse, with possessions which must have come from some handsomer
home.

In the dining room they ate their luncheon on a French oak table with
beautiful carved feet and found that the sideboard and chairs were also
of handsome French oak.

The little room soon became crowde