his twenty-first birthday.
We have the skins, four of them, in the great hall of the Chateau de
Grez--or--or we did have them before--before--" My voice faltered and
I could not continue speaking for the tears that rose in my throat and
eyes.

Quickly the man at my side turned his broad shoulders so that he
should shield me from the laughing and exclaiming groups of people
upon the deck near us.

"Before Ypres, Mademoiselle?" he asked with tears also in the depths
of his voice.

"Yes," I answered. "And I am now going into the great America with my
crippled brother and his nurse--alone. It is the land of my father and
I have his courage--I _must_ have also that of a French woman. I
have it, Monsieur," and as I spoke I drew myself to my full,
broad-shouldered height, which was almost equal to that of the man
beside me.

"Mademoiselle, I salute the courage born of an American who fought
before the guns of the Marne and of a French woman who sent him
there!" And as he spoke thus he removed from his head his silk deck
cap and held it at his shoulder in a way that I knew was a salute from
a French officer to the memory of a brother. "And also may I be
permitted to present myself, as it is a sad necessity that you travel
without one from whom I might request the introduction?" he asked of
me with a beautiful reverence.

After a search in his pocket for a few seconds he at last discovered a
case of leather and presented to me a card. As he handed it to me his
color rose up under his black eyes and grave trouble looked from
between their long black lashes. I glanced down at the card and read:

Capitaine, le Count Armond de Lasselles,
Paris,
France.
44th Chasseurs de le Republique Francaise.

"Monsieur le Count, I know, I know why it is that you go to America!"
I made exclamation as I clasped to my breast my hands and my eyes
shone with excitement. "I have read it in _Le Matin_ just the day
before yesterday. You go to buy grain against the winter of starvation
in the Republique. No man is so great a financier as you and so brave
a soldier, with your wound not healed from the trenches in the Vosges.
Monsieur, I salute you!" and I bent my head and held out my hand to
him.

"We're to expect nimble wits as well as courage of you young--shall I
say _American_ women?" he laughed as he bent over my hand. "Now
shall I not be led for introduction to the small