e drew his bow over the last chord, Paula stepped to his side, and
whispered in his ear:

"Where's America in this thing?"

Without an instant's break in the music, he dropped into a whimsical and
really humorous rendering of "Yankee Doodle." Quickly the V. A. D. moved
from the stool, caught Paula and thrust her into the vacant place. Then
together the violin and piano rattled into a fantastic and brilliant
variation of that famous and trifling air. Again, with a sudden change
of mood, Barry swung into that old song of the homesick plantation
negro, "The Suwanee River"--a simple enough air, but under the
manipulations of a master lending itself to an interpretation of the
deep and tender emotions which in that room and in that company of
French, British, Canadian, American folk were throbbing in a common
longing for the old home and the "old folks at home." Before he had
played the air once through, the grey-haired American doctor was openly
wiping his eyes, and his colleagues looking away from each other,
ashamed of the tears that did them only honour.

Paula's flushed face and flashing eyes were eloquent of her deep
emotion, while at her side the V. A. D. stood quiet, controlled, but
with a glow of tender feeling shining in her face and in her soft brown
eyes.

Not long did Barry linger amid those deeps of emotion, but straightening
his figure to its full height, and throwing up his head, he, in full
octaves, played the opening bars of what has come to be known as
America's national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner."

Instantly the A. D. C. S., the orderlies about the door, the wounded
French, British and Canadian soldiers that could stand, sprang
to attention and so remained while the violin, with its piano
accompaniment, throbbed forth the sonorous chords. With the last bar,
Barry dropped his bow to his side, but held the violin still at his
chin. Not one of that company moved, but stood with their eyes fastened
upon his face. After a moment's pause, he quietly lifted his bow again,
and on the silence, still throbbing to the strains of that triumphant
martial air, there stole out pure, sweet, as from some ethereal source,
the long drawn, trembling notes of that old sacred melody, which,
sounding over men and women in their hours of terror and anguish and
despair, has lifted them to peace and comfort and hope--"Nearer, My God,
to Thee."

The tension which had held the company was relaxed, the wounded men sank