s
and pears crept in to vary the monotony of the milk diet.

New Year's Day held a tangible excitement, for that morning saw a
modified return to ordinary food, and, in place of bottles of milk,
Paul's load consisted of such tempting selections from the school meals
as were deemed desirable for the invalids. Poultry not being included in
the school menus, we raided a cooked-provision shop and carried off a
plump, well-browned chicken. The approbation which met this venture
resulted in our supplying a succession of _poulettes_, which, at the
invalids' express desire, were smuggled into their room under my cloak.
Not that there was the most remote necessity for concealment, but the
invalids, whose sole interest centred in food, laboured under the absurd
idea that, did the authorities know they were being supplied from
without, their regular meals would be curtailed to prevent them
over-eating.

The point of interest, for the Red-Cross prisoners at least, in our
morning visits lay in the unveiling of the eatables we had brought.
School food, however well arranged, is necessarily stereotyped, and the
element of the unknown ever lurked in our packages. The sugar-sticks,
chocolates, fruit, little cakes, or what we had chanced to bring, were
carefully examined, criticised, and promptly devoured.

A slight refreshment was served them during our short stay, and when we
departed we left them eagerly anticipating luncheon. At gloaming, when
we returned, it was to find them busy with half-yards of the long crusty
loaves, plates of jelly, and tumblers, filled with milk on our Boy's
part, and with well diluted wine on that of his fellow sufferer.

Fear of starvation being momentarily averted, the Soeur used to light
fresh candles around the tiny Holy _Bebe_ on the still green
Christmas-tree, and for a space we sat quietly enjoying the radiance.
But by the time the last candle had flickered out, and the glow of a
commonplace paraffin lamp lighted the gloom, nature again demanded
nourishment; and we bade the prisoners farewell for the night, happy in
the knowledge that supper, sleep, and breakfast would pleasantly while
away the hours till our return.

The elder Red-Cross knight was a tall, good-looking lad of sixteen, the
age when a boy wears painfully high collars, shaves surreptitiously--and
unnecessarily--with his pen-knife, talks to his juniors about the
tobacco he smokes in a week, and cherishes an undying passion for a
mai