their caps to
her; she acknowledged their salute gravely and continued to cultivate her
garden with a hoe, the blond, consumptive Belgian trundling a rickety
cultivator at her heels.

"Look, Stick," drawled Glenn. "Maryette's got her decoration on."

From where they lounged by the river wall they could see the cross of the
Legion pinned to the girl's blouse.

Both muleteers had been present at the investment the day before, when a
general officer arrived from Paris and the entire garrison of Sainte Lesse
had been paraded--an impressive total of three dozen men--six gendarmes
and a brigadier; one remount sub-lieutenant and twenty troopers; a
veterinary, two white American muleteers, and five American negro hostlers
from Baton Rouge.

The girl had nearly died of shyness during the ceremony, had endured the
accolade with crimson cheeks, had stammered a whispered response to the
congratulations of neighbors who had gathered to see the little
bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse honoured by the country which she had served
in the belfry of Nivelle.

------------------

As she came past Smith and Glenn, trailing her hoe, the latter now
sufficiently proficient in French, said gaily:

"Have you heard from Jack again, Mamzelle Maryette?"

The girl blushed:

"I hear from Djack by every mail," she said, with all the transparent
honesty that characterized her.

Smith grinned:

"Just like that! Well, tell him from me to quit fooling away his time in a
hospital and come and get you or somebody is going to steal you."

The girl was very happy; she stood there in the September sunshine leaning
on her hoe and gazing half shyly, half humorously down the river where a
string of American mules was being watered.

Mellow Ethiopian laughter sounded from the distance as the Baton Rouge
negroes exchanged pleasantries in limited French with a couple of
gendarmes on the bank above them. And there, in the sunshine of the little
garden by the river, war and death seemed very far away. Only at intervals
the veering breeze brought to Sainte Lesse the immense vibration of the
cannonade; only at intervals the high sky-clatter of an airplane reminded
the village that the front was only a little north of Nivelle, and that
what had been Nivelle was not so very far away.

------------------

"If you were _my_ girl, Maryette," remarked Smith, "I'd die of worry in
that hospital."

"_You_