ntry's cause.

"For France!" an expression often heard in the Deschamps' household,
meant more than mere words could utter. All the fine, high resolve;
all the passionate belief in the justice of the French cause; all
the stern determination that the war must be won, whatever the cost---all
that went to make the magnificent French women of to-day the splendid
heroines they have shown themselves to be, was deeply rooted in
Mrs. Deschamps. Her husband in the trenches, she might well have
begrudged her only son, so young and such a mere boy in all his ways.
Not she. She was a true mother of France. The highest sacrifice
was not too great to make for the republic.

So Louis was soon to leave the Brighton boys, to go on to France
ahead of them, and to be enrolled in his own army, by the side of
which his American school chums hoped one day to be fighting a common
enemy.

Another mother of one of the Brighton boys was of the same heroic
mold as the brave French woman. Joe Little's widowed mother took
the news calmly. She had felt it would come one day. Her mind
went back, as it had done frequently after the boys had commenced
their work at the airdrome, to the days of the short Spanish-American
war. Joe's father, impulsive, had joined the colors at the first
call and gone to Cuba. Mrs. Little's only brother, very dear to
her, had volunteered, too, and was in the First Expedition to the
Philippines. Neither had come back. War had taken so much from
Mrs. Little, and left her so hard a bed to lie upon, that it seemed
cruel that she should be asked for still more sacrifice. She had
fought it all out in the quiet of her bedchamber, where, night after
night, she had prayed long and earnestly for guidance and strength
and courage.

Well Mrs. Little knew that if she told Joe the truth about her finances
and what his going would mean to her she could doubtless influence
him to stay and care for her. There were many others who could be
sent, who did not, could not, mean so much to those they would leave
behind. Joe was all she had. She was growing old, and her little
store of money was dwindling surely if slowly.

By the time Joe came home that night and told her of what the colonel
had said, Mrs. Little had steeled herself to give her boy to her
country and humanity. It cost her dear, but she set her teeth and
placed her offering on the altar of what she had come to believe
her duty, with a brave, patient smile