d cutting with a pair of garden shears, moving
round the green plot on his knees, and all the time singing.
Claude wished he could understand the words of his song.

While they were working together, tying the cloth up to the
frame, Claude, from his elevation, saw a tall girl coming slowly
up the path by which he had ascended. She paused at the top, by
the boxwood hedge, as if she were very tired, and stood looking
at them. Presently she approached the ladder and said in slow,
careful English, "Good morning. Louis has found help, I see."

Claude came down from his perch.

"Are you Mlle. de Courcy? I am Claude Wheeler. I have a note of
introduction to you, if I can find it."

She took the card, but did not look at it. "That is not
necessary. Your uniform is enough. Why have you come?"

He looked at her in some confusion. "Well, really, I don't know!
I am just in from the front to see Colonel James, and he is in
Paris, so I must wait over a day. One of the staff suggested my
coming up here--I suppose because it is so nice!" he finished
ingenuously.

"Then you are a guest from the front, and you will have lunch
with Louis and me. Madame Barre is also gone for the day. Will you
see our house?" She led him through the low door into a living
room, unpainted, uncarpeted, light and airy. There were coloured
war posters on the clean board walls, brass shell cases full of
wild flowers and garden flowers, canvas camp-chairs, a shelf of
books, a table covered by a white silk shawl embroidered with big
butterflies. The sunlight on the floor, the bunches of fresh
flowers, the white window curtains stirring in the breeze,
reminded Claude of something, but he could not remember what.

"We have no guest room," said Mlle. de Courcy. "But you will come
to mine, and Louis will bring you hot water to wash."

In a wooden chamber at the end of the passage, Claude took off
his coat, and set to work to make himself as tidy as possible.
Hot water and scented soap were in themselves pleasant things.
The dresser was an old goods box, stood on end and covered with
white lawn. On it there was a row of ivory toilet things, with
combs and brushes, powder and cologne, and a pile of white
handkerchiefs fresh from the iron. He felt that he ought not to
look about him much, but the odor of cleanness, and the
indefinable air of personality, tempted him. In one corner, a
curtain on a rod made a clothes-closet; in another was a low iron
bed, like