brings
good luck, you know. Beautiful hair brings good luck."

"I never heard that," said Hilda.

That night, for the first time since the hidden guns had marked Dixmude
for their own, the Doctor slept in security ten kilometers back of the
trenches. That night a shell struck the empty hospital of St. Jean and
wrecked it.

* * * * *

"Well, have you worked out a plan to cure this idleness," said Mrs.
Bracher, thundering into the room, like a charge of cavalry. "I've done
nothing but cut buttons off army coats, all day."

"Such a day," said Hilda, "yes, we've got a plan. We met Dr. van der
Helde again to-day. He is a brave man, and he is very pleasant, too. He
has been working in Dixmude, but no one is there any more, and he wants
to start a new post. He wants to go to Pervyse, and he wishes you and
Scotch and me to go with him and run a dressing-station for the
soldiers."

"Pervyse!" cried Mrs. Bracher. "Why, my dear girl, Pervyse is nothing
but a rubbish heap. They've shot it to pieces. There's no one at
Pervyse."

"The soldiers are there," replied Hilda; "they come in from the trenches
with a finger off or a flesh wound. They are full of colds from all the
wet weather we had last month. They haven't half enough to eat. They
need warm soup and coffee after a night out on duty. Oh, there's lots to
do. Will you do it?"

"Certainly," said Mrs. Bracher. "How about you, Scotch?"

Scotch was a charming maiden of the same land as Dr. McDonnell. She was
the silent member of a noisy group, but there was none of the active
work that she missed.

"Wake up, Scotch," said Hilda, "and tell us. Will you go to Pervyse and
stay? Mrs. Bracher and I are going."

"Me, too," said Scotch.

The next day, Dr. van der Helde called for them, and they motored the
seven miles to Pervyse. What Dixmude was on a large scale, that was
Pervyse in small. A once lovely village had been made into a black
waste. On the main streets, not one house had been left unwrecked. They
found a roomy cellar, under a house that had two walls standing. Here
they installed themselves with sleeping bags, a soup kitchen, and a kit
of first-aid-to-the-injured apparatus.

Then began for Hilda the most spirited days of her life. They had
callers from all the world at seasons when there was quiet in the
district. Maxine Elliot, Prince Alexander of Teck, Generals, the Queen
of the Belgians, labor leaders--so ran the visiting li