coming into
Russia. It had seemed to her that they must make their Red Cross work
complete by nursing in the largest of the Allied countries.

However, Nona had now to cease her reflections, for she had come to a
place in the road where she had been told to turn aside.

To make sure the girl opened her note and re-read it for probably the
tenth time. Yes, here were the three pine trees, green shadows against
the autumn sky, and here also was the narrow path that began alongside
of them.

After another fifteen minutes' walk Nona discovered that she was
approaching a hut of the poorest character. It was built of logs,
with mud roughly filling up a number of cracks.

Already Nona was learning to understand that the Russian poor are
perhaps the poorest people in the world. This hut was not so
poverty-stricken as many others she had seen; at least, there
were two windows and a front door.

Outside a hungry dog prowled about, showing not the slightest interest
in the newcomer. Yet Nona was vaguely frightened. She stopped for a
moment to reflect. Should she go in or not? The place looked ugly and
depressing and she could see no signs of human beings.

Yet perhaps there was illness inside the house and she had been sent for
to give aid. If that were true she must not hesitate.

As Nona lifted her hand to knock at the door, suddenly it occurred to
her as curious that the note she had received had been written upon
extremely fine paper and in a handwriting which revealed breeding and
education. Yet this peasant's hut suggested neither the one nor the
other.

But Nona was more mystified than fearful since her Red Cross uniform was
her protection, and these were not days when one dared think of
oneself.

She knocked quietly but firmly on the wooden door.

The next moment the heavy bar was slipped aside. Then Nona saw a woman
of about thirty-five, dressed in the costume of a Russian peasant,
standing with both hands outstretched toward her.

"My dear," she began in perfect English, "this is better fortune than I
dreamed, to find you once again, and in Russia, of all countries!"

CHAPTER II

_A Former Acquaintance_

"But," Nona began, and then hesitated, feeling extraordinarily puzzled.
The face of the woman before her was oddly familiar, although she could
not at the instant recall where or when she had known her.

Yet she remembered the deep blue-gray eyes with their perfectly penciled
dark brows and la