re
the girl that I had thought she was about eighteen and was astonished
to hear that she had a child of any age. But twelve! She turned to me
with a gentle and deprecatory smile.

"I loved very young," she explained.

VII

Chaptal and Villemin are only two of Madame Balli's hospitals. I
believe she visits others, carrying gifts to both the men and the
kitchens, but the only other of her works that I came into personal
contact with was an oeuvre she had organized to teach convalescent
soldiers, mutilated or otherwise, how to make bead necklaces. These
are really beautiful and are another of her own inventions.

Up in the front bedroom of her charming home in the Avenue Henri
Martin is a table covered with boxes filled with glass beads of every
color. Here Madame Balli, with a group of friends, sits during all her
spare hours and begins the necklaces which the soldiers come for and
take back to the hospital to finish. I sat in the background and
watched the men come in--many of them with the _Croix de Guerre,_ the
_Croix de la Legion d'Honneur,_ or the _Medaille Militaire_ pinned on
their faded jackets. I listened to brief definite instructions of
Madame Balli, who may have the sweetest smile in the world, but who
knows what she wants people to do and invariably makes them do it. I
saw no evidence of stupidity or slackness in these young soldiers;
they might have been doing bead-work all their lives, they combined
the different colors and sizes so deftly and with such true artistic
feeling.

Madame Balli has sold hundreds of these necklaces. She has a case at
the Ritz Hotel, and she has constant orders from friends and their
friends, and even from dressmakers; for these trinkets are as nearly
works of art as anything so light may be. The men receive a certain
percentage of the profits and will have an ample purse when they leave
the hospital. Another portion goes to buy delicacies for their less
fortunate comrades--and this idea appeals to them immensely--the rest
goes to buy more beads at the glittering shops on the Rue du Rivoli.
The necklaces bring from five to eight or ten dollars. The soldiers in
many of the hospitals are doing flat beadwork, which is ingenious and
pretty; but nothing compares with these necklaces of Madame Balli, and
some of the best dressed American women in Paris are wearing them.

VIII

On the twentieth of July (1916) _Le Figaro_ devoted an article to
Madame Balli's Reconfort d