hent Red Cross, to Hilda.

"To-morrow, we will go there," she said.

That first evening, she led Hinchcliffe through Ghent. In her weeks of
work there, she had come to love the beautiful old town. It was
strangely unlike her home cities--the brisk prairie "parlor city," where
she had grown up inch by inch, as it extended itself acre by acre, and
the mad modern city where she had struggled for her bread. The tide of
slaughter was still to the east: a low rumble, like surf on a far-away
beach. Sometimes it came whinnying and licking at the very doorstep, and
then ebbed back, but never rolled up on the ancient city. It was only an
under-hum to merriment. It sharpened the nerve of response to whatever
passing excellence there was in the old streets and vivid gardens.
Modern cities are portions of a world in the making. But Ghent was a
completed and placid thing, as fair as men could fashion it.

As evening fell, they two leaned on St. Michel's bridge of the River
Lys. Just under the loiterers, canals that wound their way from inland
cities to the sea were dark and noiseless, as if sleep held them. The
blunt-nosed boats of wide girth that trafficked down those calm reaches
were as motionless as the waters that floated them. Out of the upper
air, bells from high towers dropped their carillon on a population
making its peace with the ended day. Cathedral and churches and belfry
were massed against the night, cutting it with their pinnacles till they
entered the region of the early stars and the climbing moon.

Then, when that trance of peace had given them the light sadness which
fulfilled beauty brings, they found it good to hasten down the deserted
street to the cafes and thronging friendly people. They knew how to live
and take their pleasure, those people of Ghent. No sullen silence and
hasty gorging for them. They practised a leisurely dining and an eager
talk, a zest in the flying moment. Their streets were blocked to the
curb with little round occupied tables. Inner rooms were bright with
lights and friendly with voices. From the silver strainer of the
"filtered coffee" the hot drops fell through to the glass, one by one,
black and potent. Good coffee, and a gay race.

But those lively people knew in their hearts that a doom was on its way,
so their evenings had the merit of a vanishing pleasure, a benefit not
to be renewed with the seasons. Time for the people of Ghent carried the
grace of last days, when everythin