ll where I had seen her before.

"Then, half-shyly, she spoke, and her voice matched her eyes.

"'You are Mr. Bickett, are you not, Mrs. Graham's cousin?'

"For a moment I did not realize that 'Mrs. Graham' was Margaret. But
that gave me no clue to the identity of the girl. Then all at once it
came to me.

"'I know you now,' I said. 'You are Mark Earle's little sister,
Katherine.'"

So they had met at last, Jack Bickett, my brother-cousin, and
Katherine Sonnot, the little nurse who had taken care of my
mother-in-law, and whom I had learned to love as a dear friend.

Was I glad or sorry, I wondered, as I picked up Jack's letter again
that I had crushed any feeling I might have had in the matter, and
had spoken the word to Dr. Braithwaite that resulted in Katharine's
joining the eminent surgeon's staff of nurses? It seemed a pity to
have these two meet only to be torn apart so soon by death.

"I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I was when we recognized
each other. You can imagine over here that to one American the meeting
with another American, especially if both have the same friends, is
an event. Luckily, Miss Sonnot was just about to have an afternoon off
when we met, and if she had an engagement--which she denied--she was
kind enough to break it for me. I need not tell you that I spent the
most delightful afternoon I have had since coming over here.

"You can be sure that I at once exerted all the influence I had
through my friend, Caillard, and his friend in the hospital to secure
as much free time for Miss Sonnot as possible for the time I was to be
on furlough. It is like getting home after being away so long to talk
to this brave, sensible, beautiful young girl--for she deserves all of
the adjectives."

In the two letters which were the last ones numbered by Mrs. Stewart,
Jack spoke again and again of the little nurse. Almost the last line
of his last letter, written after he returned to the front, spoke of
her.

"Little Miss Sonnot and I correspond," he wrote, "and you can have
no idea how much good her letters do me. They are like fresh, sweet
breezes glowing through the miasma of life in the trenches."

I folded the letters, put them back into their envelopes, and arranged
them as Mrs. Stewart had given them to me. When she came back into the
room she found me still holding them and staring into the fire.

"Did you read them all?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"Don't you think those las