s when his mood was
on him. This gift in him called out the like in other men, and his
pockets were heavy with the keepsakes of young soldiers, a photograph of
the beloved, a treasured coin, a good-bye letter, which he was
commissioned to carry to the dear one, when the giver should fall. With
little faith that he himself would execute the commissions, he had
carefully labelled each memento with the name and address of its
destination. For he knew that whatever was found on his body, the body
of the fighting Commandant, the King's friend, would receive speedy
forwarding to its appointed place.

It was an evening of spring, but spring had come with little promise
that way. Ashes of homes and the sour dead lay too thickly over those
fields, for nature to make her great recovery in one season. The task
was too heavy for even her vast renewals. Patience, she seemed to say, I
come again.

The Commandant was sitting at ease enjoying his pipe.

"Mademoiselle Hilda," said he. Hilda was sitting at the piano, but no
tunes were flowing. She was behaving badly that evening and she knew it.
She fumbled with the sheaves of music, and chucked Scotch under the
chin, and doctored the candles. She was manifesting all the younger
elements in her twenty-two years.

"Mademoiselle Hilda," insisted the Commandant. He was sentimental, and
full of old-world courtesies, but he was used to being obeyed. Hilda
became rapt in contemplating a candlestick.

"Mademoiselle Hilda, a little music, if you please," he said with a
finality.

"You play," said Hilda to Scotch, sliding off the soap-box which served
to uphold the artist to her instrument.

"Hilda, you make me tired," chided Scotch. "The Commandant has given you
his orders."

"Oh, all right," said Hilda.

She played pleasantly with feeling and technique. More of her hidden
life came to an utterance with her music than at other times. She led
her notes gently to a close.

"Mademoiselle Hilda," said the Commandant from his seat in the shadows
on the sofa, "parlez-vous francais?"

This was his regular procedure. Why did he say it? They never could
guess. He knew that the women, all three, understood French--Mrs.
Bracher and Scotch speaking it fluently, Hilda, as became an American,
haltingly. Did he not carry on most of his converse with them in
French--always, when eloquent or sentimental? But unfailingly he used
his formula, when he was highly pleased. They decided he must once hav