ling powers."

"The latter, of course," returned he, a little nettled.

"Vain as a peacock," whispered Scotch to the ever-watchful Mrs. Bracher.

"I don't understand you women," said Ainslie-Barkleigh, clearing his
throat for action. But Hilda was too quick for him.

"I know you don't," she cut in, "and that is no fault in you. But what
you really mean is that you don't like us, and that, I submit, is your
own fault."

"But let me explain," urged he.

"Go ahead," said Hilda.

"Well, what I mean is this," he explained. "Here I find you three women
out at the very edge of the battle-front. Here you are in a cellar,
sleeping in bags on the straw, living on bully-beef and canned stuff.
Now, you could just as well be twenty miles back, nursing in a
hospital."

"Is there any shortage of nurses for the hospitals?" interposed Hilda.
"When I went to the Red Cross at Pall Mall in London, they had over
three thousand nurses on the waiting list."

"That's true enough," assented Barkleigh. "But what I mean is, this is
reckless; you are in danger, without really knowing it."

"So are the men in danger," returned Hilda. "The soldiers come in here,
hungry, and we have hot soup for them. They come from the trenches, with
a gunshot wound in the hand, or a piece of shell in a leg, and we fix
them up. That's better than travelling seven or eight miles before
getting attention. Why it was only a week ago that Mrs. Bracher here--"

"Now none of that," broke in the nurse sternly.

"Hush," said Hilda, "it isn't polite to interrupt when a gentleman is
asking for information."

She turned back to the correspondent.

"Last week," she took up her story, "a young Belgian private came in
here with his lower lip swollen out to twice its proper size. It had got
gangrene in it. A silly old military doctor had clapped a treatment over
it, when the wound was fresh and dirty, without first cleaning it out.
Mrs. Bracher treated it every two hours for six days. The boy used to
come right in here from the trenches. And would you believe it, that lip
is looking almost right. If it hadn't been for her, he would have been
disfigured for life."

"Very good," admitted the correspondent, "but it doesn't quite satisfy
me. Wait till you get some real hot shell fire out here, then you'll
make for your happy home."

"Why," began Scotch, rising slowly but powerfully to utterance.

"It's all right, Scotch," interposed Hilda, at a gallop, "save the