"How did one of your papers get in when it was sealed?"

"I think," observed Harmony, leaning forward, "that little boys must
not ask too many questions, especially when Christmas is only six weeks
off."

"I know! He wants to send me the horns the way he sent me the boar's
tusks."

For Peter, having in one letter unwisely recorded the slaughter of a
boar, had been obliged to ransack Vienna for a pair of tusks. The tusks
had not been so difficult. But horns!

Jimmy was contented with his solution and asked no more questions. The
morning's excitement had tired him, and he lay back. Dr. Gates went to
hold a whispered consultation with the nurse, and came back, looking
grave.

The boy was asleep, holding the letter in his thin hands.

The visit to the hospital was a good thing for Harmony--to find some one
worse off than she was, to satisfy that eternal desire of women to do
something, however small, for some one else. Her own troubles looked
very small to her that day as she left the hospital and stepped out into
the bright sunshine.

She passed the impassive sentry, then turned and went back to him.

"Do you wish to do a very kind thing?" she asked in German.

Now the conversation of an Austrian sentry consists of yea, yea, and
nay, nay, and not always that. But Harmony was lovely and the sun was
moderating the wind. The sentry looked round; no one was near.

"What do you wish?"

"Inside that third window is a small boy and he is very ill. I do not
think--perhaps he will never be well again. Could you not, now and then,
pass the window? It pleases him."

"Pass the window! But why?"

"In America we see few of our soldiers. He likes to see you and the
gun."

"Ah, the gun!" He smiled and nodded in comprehension, then, as an
officer appeared in the door of a coffee-house across the street, he
stiffened into immobility and stared past Harmony into space. But the
girl knew he would do as she had desired.

That day brought good luck to Harmony. The wife of one of the professors
at the hospital desired English conversation at two Kronen an hour.

Peter brought the news home at noon, and that afternoon Harmony was
engaged. It was little enough, but it was something. It did much more
than offer her two Kronen an hour; it gave her back her self-confidence,
although the immediate result was rather tragic.

The Frau Professor Bergmeister, infatuated with English and with
Harmony, engaged her, and took her firs