and then repeated, "Awful!
However, I don't know the first thing about girls, and of course you
do. If you must cry on somebody, why, you must; and you can use me, if
you like."

CHAPTER XII

GREATER THINGS

A week flew past. In the convalescent ward there was the greatest
amount of suppressed excitement. All the soldiers loved Helen, and
they showered her with queer, pathetic little gifts, always the best of
their poor store of belongings. Tony was not to leave his cot. He
would have to be moved across Europe on a stretcher, but he lay beaming
at the men who called good wishes to him in half a dozen languages.

The wedding morning dawned clear and beautiful. Every soldier who
could hobble was out early gathering flowers and boughs with which they
trimmed the ward. Helen, who was a hundred yards away, in the nurses'
tent, knew nothing of all this. An hour before she was to come to meet
Tony, the old doctor, bearing a large package, stood before the tent.

"My dear," he said awkwardly when Helen appeared, "I--er--wanted to do
something for you, and it gave me a good deal of happiness to pretend
that you were my own daughter, if you don't object. I happen to have a
sister in Paris, and I telegraphed her a week ago. I think I have
heard you say you were size thirty-six. Well, my dear, this package
has just come. She sent it in care of a reserve of nurses. You
see--ha--hum--the men will be so pleased. Now you put it on if it is
fit for you, and wear it, with the love of a grateful old man." He
turned and abruptly walked away as Helen untied the box, but he could
not so escape from those swift feet. There was a cry as the girl
peered beneath the papers, and then a swift rush toward him. So it
happened that it was not Zaidos' reluctant and unaccustomed shoulder on
which the happy tears were shed, and it was not to Tony that Helen's
last tender girl-kisses were given.

And when the time came for the simple, sad little ceremony in the
hospital ward, it was not a dark clad nurse who walked between the cots
on the doctor's arm, but such a vision of loveliness that the men
gasped and Tony turned so pale that the aid beside him reached for the
spirits of ammonia. For the doctor's present was a wedding dress, just
as satiny and lacy and long as any bride in Mayfair could have worn.

The veil covered her lovely face, and through it her dark eyes lingered
tenderly on the eager white faces that lined he