le lamp
shining us good cheer. Think of that. I'm with the other wing now,
but any day I may be shifted to yours. Until then,

Yours,

"P. B."

The nurse thrust the paper into the front of her uniform, shook the hand
that had brought it to her, and passed up the steps to the work that was
waiting for her. The first day passed like a dream. Guns boomed, shells
screeched their way overhead and landed somewhere. Wounded came and went.
Many died, and a white-haired, tottering old sexton helped to carry them
away. The old palsied _abbe_ came and chanted prayers for the dying, and
some one played a "_Dies Irae_" on the little organ. Old French mothers
stole in timorously and offered their services, the service of their hands
and emptied hearts. When they found they might help they were pathetically
grateful, fluttering down between the aisles of wounded like souls with a
day's reprieve from purgatory. They were finding panacea for their
bereavement in this care of the sons of other mothers. And as they passed
Sheila, in broken sentences, almost inarticulate, they told their sorrow:

"Six--all gone, ma'm'selle."

"Jean, Francois, Paul, and Victor--Victor the last--he fell two months
ago."

"Four sons and four daughters--a rich legacy from my dead husband,
ma'm'selle. And I have paid it back--soul by soul--all--he has them all
now."

So they mourned as they went their way of tender service, the words
dropping unconsciously from their quivering old lips. A few there were who
stood apart, the envied mothers with hope. Sheila learned who they were
almost from the beginning. Each had a son somewhere not reported. Old
Madame d'Arcy whispered about it as she bathed the face of the boy who
looked so much like her own.

"Of course, ma'm'selle, my Lucien may be--I have not heard from him in
many months. It is not for me to hope too much. But I think--yes, I think,
ma'm'selle, he will come home to me when the war is over."

And Madame Simone, who brought fresh black coffee and little cakes for
those who could eat them, trembled with the gladness of ministering to the
boys who were fighting with hers for France. "I had almost ceased to pray
when the Americans came, but now--ah, ma'm'selle, now there is hope again
in this withered breast. I even dream now of mon p'tit--the youngest of
them all. I feel the good God is sparing him for me."

And old Isabelle, who came to scrub the floor and clean, muttered, as