to be Tom Cameron himself; only she knew very well that Tom
had not joined the air service.

The incident, however, heartened her. Whatever Tom was doing--no
matter how perilous his situation--he had thought of her. She had an
idea that the message had been written within a few hours.

She went on more cheerfully toward the Dupay farm. She arrived amidst
a clamor of children and fowls, to find the adult members of the family
gathered in the big living-room of the farmhouse instead of occupied,
as usual, about the indoor and outdoor work. For the Dupays were no
sluggards.

"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!" cried Henriette, and ran to meet her. The
French girl's plump cheeks were tear-streaked and Ruth instantly saw
that not only the girl but the whole family was much disturbed.

"What has happened?" the American girl asked.

In these days of war almost any imaginable thing might happen.

"It is poor old Aunt Abelard!" Henriette exclaimed in her own tongue.
"She must remove from her old home at Nacon."

Ruth knew that the place was a little village (and villages can be
small, indeed, in France) between Clair and the field hospital where
she had herself been for a week, but on another road than that by which
she had traveled.

"It is too near the battle line," she said to Henriette. "Don't you
think she should have moved long ago?"

"But the Germans left it intact," Henriette declared. "She is very
comfortable there. She does not wish to leave. Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!
could you not speak to some of your gr-r-reat, gr-r-reat, brave
American officers and have it stopped?"

"Have _what_ stopped?" cried Ruth in amazement.

"Aunt Abelard's removal."

"Are the Americans making her leave her home?"

"It is so!" Henriette declared.

"It is undoubtedly necessary then," returned Ruth gently.

"It is not understood. If she could remain there throughout the German
invasion, and was undisturbed by our own army, why should these
Americans plague her?"

Henriette spoke with some heat, and Ruth saw that her mother and the
grandmother were listening. Their faces did not express their usual
cheerful welcome with which Ruth had become familiar. Aunt Abelard's
trouble made a difference in their feeling toward the Americans, that
was plain.

Nor was this to be wondered at. The French farmer is as deeply rooted
in his soil as the great trees of the French forests. That is why
their treatment by the German invader and