generously and given so ungrudgingly, gave me a queer feeling in my
throat. A second later that had all passed over and as I worked I
questioned the young fellows as to home and family and finally at what
place they had been wounded. Some did not know, others named unfamiliar
corners, but La Tretoire startled me. Our morning halt! Then the
invaders had crossed the Marne? For these were not wounds from
exploding shell but Mauser bullets and pistol shots!

Meanwhile the sisters brought iron beds and soft mattresses into the
next room, and each boy in turn was put to rest. Fortunately there was
nothing very serious, for we had no doctor and knew not where to find
one. When we reached our last patient he was so limp that we feared he
would faint. Imagine, if you can, what it is to cut away a stout pair
of trooper's boots, and undress an almost helpless man whose clothes are
fairly glued to the skin with blood, dirt and perspiration.

"Hold the ammonia closer to his nose," said Madame Guix, tugging at a
wire that served as boot lace.

"I'm afraid he's exhausted. There he goes--" I had just time to catch
the body as it slid from the chair.

Madame Guix grasped his wrist.

"His pulse is good. Hold fast till I get my needle."

The boy's lips parted and a familiar sound filled the room.

"He's not fainted!" I gasped. "He's asleep! Snoring!"

Poor little fellow, a bullet in the shoulder and one in the shin, and
yet fatigue had overcome the pain! When we finally had to wake him, he
apologized so nicely for the trouble he had given us, and sighed with
delight when he touched the cool linen sheets.

"You must have found me a pretty mess. I haven't been out of my saddle
for three weeks, and we've been fighting every minute since we left
Charleroi."

Our patients all asleep, Madame Guix and I sought a moment's rest in the
open. A door in the corridor led out into a lovely old-world garden,
surrounded on four sides by a delicately plastered cloister. The harvest
moon shone down, covering everything with a silver sheen, and such quiet
and calm reigned that it was almost impossible to believe that we were
not visitors to some famous landscape, leisurely enjoying a long-planned
trip.

We were given no time to dream, however, for hasty footsteps in the
corridor and the appearance of a white-robed sister carrying a gun, told
us that our task was not yet finished.

On a bench in the cloister, his head buried in o