w in my car. I know the
matron and some of the nurses in the American hospital there."

"You don't mean it," said Barry, "but are you sure it's not a terrible
bore for you? I am much afraid that I have been a nuisance to you, and
you have been so very, very good to me."

"A bore!" she cried, and the brown eyes were wide open in surprise. "A
bore, and you a Canadian! Why, you are one of my brothers' friends,
and besides you seem to me a friend of our family. My uncle Howard, you
know, told me all about you. Besides," she added in a voice of great
gentleness, "you remember, I promised."

Barry caught her hand.

"I wish I could tell you all I feel about it, but somehow I can't get
the words."

She allowed her hand to remain in his for a moment or two; then
withdrawing it, said hurriedly, with a slight colour showing in her
cheeks:

"I think I understand." Then changing her tone abruptly, and dropping
into the business-like manner of a V. A. D., she said, "So, we'll go
to-morrow. It will be a splendid run, if the day is fine. We had better
start by nine o'clock to give us a long day." Then, as if forgetting she
was a V. A. D., she added with a little catch in her voice, "Oh, I shall
love it!"

The day proved to be fine,--one of those golden days of spring that have
given to the land its name of "sunny France." It was a day for life and
youth and hope. A day on which war seemed more than ever a cruel outrage
upon humanity. But across the sunniest days, across the shining face of
France, and across their spirits, too, the war cast its black shadow.
They both, however, seemed to have resolved that for that day at least
they would turn their eyes from that shadow and let them rest only where
the sun was shining.

The V. A. D. with her mind intent upon her wheel could only contribute,
as her share in the conversation, descriptive and somewhat desultory
comments upon points of interest along the way. Barry, because it
harmonised with his mood, talked about his father and all their years
together but ever without obtrusion of his grief. The experiences of
the past three days, which they had shared, seemed to have established
between them a sense of mutual confidence and comradeship such as in
ordinary circumstances would have demanded years of companionship to
effect. This sense of sympathy and of perfect understanding on the part
of the girl at his side, together with the fascinating charm of her
beauty, and her sweetn