operation,
assumes personal charge of infectious cases, takes temperatures, waits
on the table, and prays all night by the dying. Mr. Van Husen, a young
American who was helping her at that time, told me that if a boy died
in the hospital and was a devout Catholic, and friendless in Paris,
she arranged to have a high mass for his funeral service at a church
in the neighborhood.

The last time I saw her she was feeling very happy because her
youngest son, who had been missing for several weeks, had suddenly
appeared at the hotel and spent a few days with her. A week later the
Duc de Rohan, one of the most brilliant soldiers in France, was
killed; and since my return I have heard of the death of her youngest.
Such is life for the Mothers of France to-day.

COUNTESS GREFFULHE

The Countess Greffulhe (born Princesse de Chimay and consequently a
Belgian, although no stretch of fancy could picture her as anything
but a Parisian) offered her assistance at once to the Government and
corresponded with hundreds of Mayors in the provinces in order to have
deserted hotels made over into hospitals with as little delay as
possible. She also established a depot to which women could come
privately and sell their laces, jewels, bibelots, etc. Her next
enterprise was to form a powerful committee which responsible men and
women of the allied countries could ask to get up benefits when the
need for money was pressing.

Upon one occasion when a British Committee made this appeal she
induced Russia to send a ballet for a single performance; and she also
persuaded the manager of the Opera House to open it for a gala
performance for another organization. There is a romantic flavor about
all the countess's work, and just how practical it was or how long it
was pursued along any given line I was unable to learn.

MADAME PAQUIN

Madame Paquin, better known to Americans, I fancy, than any of the
great dressmakers of Europe, offered her beautiful home in Neuilly to
the Government to be used as a hospital, and it had accommodated up to
the summer of 1916 eight thousand, nine hundred soldiers.

She also kept all her girls at work from the first. As no one ordered
a gown for something like eighteen months they made garments for the
soldiers, or badges for the numerous appeal days--we all decorated
ourselves, within ten minutes after leaving the house, like heroes and
heroines on the field, about three times a week--and upon one occasi