ents:

"What on earth should they wear to the presentation?"

Fortunately, under the circumstances there was but one answer to this
question. They were invited to the Palace as Red Cross nurses, they must
therefore wear their Red Cross uniforms. Since the three girls had
almost nothing else left in their wardrobes, this was just as well.
Constant moving from place to place, with little opportunity for
transportation, had reduced their luggage to the most limited amounts.

Yet assuredly they were as handsome and far more dignified on the
afternoon of their appearance at the Winter Palace in the costumes of
American Red Cross nurses, than if they had been appareled in the court
trains and feathers of more gala occasions.

Mildred always looked especially well in her uniform. She was less
pretty than the other two girls. But for this very reason her dignity
and the sense of serenity that her personality suggested showed to best
advantage in the simple toilette of white with the Red Cross insignia on
the arm. However, over her uniform Mildred wore the magnificent sable
coat in which she had appeared at her friends' lodgings in Petrograd.

This afternoon, in spite of her excitement over what lay ahead of them,
Barbara did not allow the coat to pass unnoticed a second time.

"For goodness' sake, Mildred, where did you get that magnificent
garment?" she demanded, just as they were about to go downstairs to get
into their sleigh. "You owned a very nice coat when we left you behind
in Grovno, but some fairy wand must have changed it. This is the most
wonderful sable I ever saw."

Mildred flushed and then laid her cheek against the beautiful, soft
brown warmth of her furs. "It is time you and Nona were speaking of
my grandeur," she declared. "You see, in getting away from the fort
at the last I stupidly left my own furs behind; indeed, I don't know
what became of them. General Alexis noticed that I was cold almost
immediately. Somehow, after he began to get stronger, he managed to
have this coat brought to the country house where we were staying.
Then just before we started to Petrograd he presented it to me. Of
course, I did not feel that I ought to accept it and insisted I
could not. But General Alexis said that he had received so much
kindness from me, he thought it very ungenerous of me to make him
altogether my debtor. I didn't know what to do. Do you think it
wrong to accept it, Bab? Somehow I did not know how to con