in the sunset,
smiling, and waving his hand to her. When Christmastide came, it was as he
said. He was with his little Christine.

"I can hardly keep from crying whenever I think of him," Lloyd wrote to
Betty. "It was so pitiful, his giving up everything in the world that he
cared for, and going off to the hospital to wait there alone for his
hour-glass to run out. Hero seems to miss him, but I think he understands
that he belongs to me now. I can scarcely believe that he is really mine,
and that I may take him back to America with me. He is the best thing that
the wonder-ball has given me, or ever can give me.

"To-morrow we start to Lucerne to see the Lion in the rocks, and from
there we go to Paris. Only a little while now, and we shall all be
together. I can hardly wait for you to see my lovely St. Bernard with his
Red Cross of Geneva, and the medal that he has earned the right to wear."

CHAPTER VII.

IN TOURS

A dozen times between Paris and Tours the Little Colonel turned from the
car window to smile at her mother, and say with a wriggle of impatience,
"Oh, I can't _wait_ to get there! Won't Betty and Eugenia be surprised to
see us two whole days earlier than they expected!"

"But you mustn't count too much on seeing them at the hotel the minute we
arrive," her mother cautioned her. "You know Cousin Carl wrote that they
were making excursions every day to the old chateaux near there, and I
think it quite probable they will be away. So don't set your heart on
seeing them before to-morrow night. Some of those trips take two days."

Lloyd turned to the window again and tried to busy herself with the scenes
flying past: the peasant women with handkerchiefs over their heads, and
the men in blue cotton blouses and wooden shoes at work in the fields; the
lime-trees and the vineyards, the milk-carts that dogs helped to draw. It
was all as Joyce had described it to her, and she pinched herself to make
sure that she was awake, and actually in France, speeding along toward the
Gate of the Giant Scissors, and all the delightful foreign experience that
Joyce had talked about. She had dreamed many day-dreams about this
journey, but the thought that was giving her most pleasure now was not
that these dreams were at last coming true, but that in a very short time
she would be face to face with Betty and Eugenia.

It was noon when they reached Tours, and went rattling up to the Hotel
Bordeaux in the big omnibus.