it was too late then.

It was when we had gone back to the city that we realized that Tish was
still determined to get to France. Only two days after our return she
came in with a book called "Military Codes and Signals," and gave it to
Aggie. She had it marked at a place which told how to signal at night
with an electric flashlight, and from that time on for several weeks she
would sit in her window at night, with Aggie on the pavement across the
street, also with a pocket flash, both of them signaling anything that
came into their heads. It was rather hard on Aggie on cold evenings, and
I remember very well that one night she came in and threw her flashlight
on the floor, and then burst into tears.

"I'm through, Tish," she said, "and that's all there is to it! I've
stood being frozen until my feet are so cold I can't tell one from the
other, but I draw the line at being insulted."

"Insulted?" Tish said. "If you are going to mind trifles when your
country's safety is in question you'd better stay at home. Who insulted
you?"

Well, it seems that by way of conversation Aggie had flashed that the
wretch with the cornet who rooms above Tish's apartment was at the
window watching and she wished he'd fall out and break his neck.

He had then put out his own light and had appeared in the window again,
and had flashed in the same code: "Come, birdie, fly with me."

For certain reasons I have decided not to reveal how Tish finally
arranged that we should get to France. As the Secretary of War says, it
might make him very unpopular with the many women he had been obliged to
refuse. It is enough to say that the wonderful day finally came when we
found ourselves on the very ocean which had carried Tish's nephew on his
glorious mission. Aggie was particularly exalted as we went down the
bay, escorted by encircling aeroplanes.

"I'm not a brave woman, Tish," she said softly, "but as I look back on
that glorious sky line I feel that no sacrifice is too great to make for
it. I am ready to do or die."

"Humph," said Tish. "Well, as far as I'm concerned, after the prices
they charged me at that hotel the Germans are welcome to New York. I'd
give it to them and say 'Thank you' when they took it."

We then went below and tried on our life-preserving suits, which the
clerk at the steamship office had rented to us at fifteen dollars each.

He said they were most essential, and that when properly inflated one
could float about