ess, was to Barry's stricken heart like a healing
balm to an aching wound.

They were in sight of Etaples before Barry imagined they could have made
more than half the journey.

"Etaples, so soon! It cannot be!"

"But it is," said the girl, throwing a bright smile at him, "and that's
the hospital, on the hill yonder, where the flag is flying."

"Why," exclaimed Barry, "that's the American flag! What's the American
flag doing there?"

"It's flying over an American hospital," said the V. A. D. "I think it's
such a beautiful flag. In the breeze, it seems to me the most beautiful
of all the flags. The stripes seem to flow out from the stars. Of
course," she added hurriedly, "the Union Jack with all its historic
meaning and its mingled crosses, is splendidly glorious and is more
decorative, but I always think, when I see those floating stripes, that
the Americans have the most beautiful flag."

"I admit," said Barry, "it's a beautiful flag, but--well, I'm a
Britisher, I suppose, and see it with British eyes. But why is that flag
flying here in France? How do the authorities allow that? It's a neutral
flag--awfully neutral, too."

"I understand they have permission from the French authorities to fly
that flag over every American institution in France. And you know,"
continued the girl with rising enthusiasm, "if they are neutral, they
have immensely helped us, too, haven't they?--in munitions and that sort
of thing."

"That's true enough," agreed Barry, "and it's all the more wonderful
when you think of the millions of Germans that they have in their
country. I heard a very fine thing, not long ago, from a friend of
mine. A Pittsburgh oil man about to close a deal, with a traveller,
with millions in it, suddenly discovered that his oil was to go to
the Germans. At once the deal was off, and, though the price was
considerably raised, there was, in his own words, 'Nothing 'doing!' 'No
stuff of mine,' he said, 'shall go to help an enemy of the Anglo-Saxon
race.' That's the way I believe the real Americans feel."

"This is a wonderful hospital," said the V. A. D. "Whenever I see it, I
somehow feel my heart grow warm to the American people for the splendid
way in which they have helped poor France, for, you know, in the first
months of the war, the French hospitals were perfectly ghastly."

"I know, I know!" cried Barry. "And the Canadians, too, have chipped in
a bit. We have a Canadian hospital in Paris, for the Frenc