had little difficulty with her nursing, for
the ways of the ill are universal and she had already seen so much
suffering.

Now the hospital room was in half shadow, but it was never light nor
aired as the American nurse felt it should be.

The hospital quarters were only a portion of the fortress, a great room,
like a barracks which had been hastily turned into a refuge for the
wounded.

The long stone chamber boasted only four small windows hardly larger
than portholes and some distance from the ground. These opened with
difficulty and were protected by heavy iron bars. But then in Russia in
many private houses no window is ever voluntarily opened from autumn
until Easter, as the cold is so intense and the arrangements for heating
so crude.

Today Mildred wondered if the heavy, sick-laden air was giving her
extraordinary fancies. She kept seeing dream pictures. For as she stared
about the cold chamber of sorrow she beheld with greater distinctness
the image of her own rooms at home.

This was the hour when the maid came to light her yellow-shaded electric
candles; then she would put a fresh log on the fire and stir it to
brightness, not because the added warmth was needed in their big
steam-heated house, but because of the cheerfulness. Then would follow
her mother's invitation to drink a cup of tea with her and Dick in the
library, or would she prefer having it served in her own room?

With this thought the girl's eyes clouded for a moment. Doubtless Dick
and her mother would be having tea together this afternoon and Dick
would in all probability be trying to explain why his sister was not
with him. During her work in France and Belgium her mother and father
had been more than kind, but with this suggestion of coming into Russia
to continue her nursing both her parents had protested.

It is true that they had not actually demanded her presence at home, for
she would not have disobeyed a command. But undoubtedly they had urged
her homecoming.

Her father longed for her because of the rare affection between them and
the fact that he dreaded the conditions and experiences that might await
her and her friends in Russia. For these same reasons her mother also
desired her return, yet Mildred knew that there was another motive
actuating her mother. She might be unconscious of the fact, but if her
daughter should reappear in New York society at the present time,
because of her war experiences she would become an obj