d the women fairer than the average. But as for going to
Belgium, I must tell you that we have many more desiring to go than we
can possibly find room for."

"That is why I came to you," responded Hilda. "That means competition,
and then you will have to choose the youngest and strongest."

"I can promise you nothing," went on the Doctor; "I am afraid it is
quite impossible. But if you care to do it, keep in touch with me for
the next fortnight. Send me an occasional letter. Call me up, if you
will."

She did. She sent him telegrams, letters by the "Boots" in her
lodging-house. She called upon him. She took Mrs. Bracher with her.

* * * * *

And that was how Hilda came to go to Flanders. When the Corps crossed
from happy unawakened London to forlorn Belgium, they felt lost. How to
take hold, they did not know. There were the cars, and here were the
workers, but just what do you do?

Their first weeks were at Ghent, rather wild, disheveled weeks of
clutching at work. They had one objective: the battlefield; one purpose:
to make a series of rescues under fire. Cramped in a placid land,
smothered by peace-loving folk, they had been set quivering by the war.
The time had come to throw themselves at the Continent, and do or die
where action was thick. Nothing was quainter, even in a land of
astounding spectacles, than the sight of the rescuing ambulances rolling
out to the wounded of a morning, loaded to the gunwale with charming
women and several men. "Where will they put the wounded?" was the query
that sprang to every lip that gaped at their passing. There was room for
everybody but wounded. Fortunately there were few wounded in those early
days when rescuers tingled for the chance to serve and see. So the Ghent
experience was a probation rather than a fulfilled success. Then the
enemy descended from fallen Antwerp, and the Corps sped away, ahead of
the vast gray Prussian machine, through Bruges and Ostend, to Furnes.
Here, too, in Furnes, the Corps was still trying to find its place in
the immense and intricate scheme of war.

The man that saved them from their fogged incertitude was a Belgian
doctor, a military Red Cross worker. The first flash of him was of a
small silent man, not significant. But when you had been with him, you
felt reserves of force. That small person had a will of his own. He was
thirty-one years of age, with a thoughtful but kindly face. His eye had
pleasant l