"So many hundreds like you, poor girl. All want to get back to the home country, and we are so helpless to aid every one." The lady of the embassy thought, as she cast a swift glance over the slender shoulders and diminutive figure beneath them, that here, indeed, was a babe in the woods. The blatant, self-assured tourist demanding assistance from her country's representative as a right she knew; also the shifty, sloe-eyed demi-vierge who wanted no questions asked. But such a one as this little person---- "You see, I am a buyer for Hildebrand's store in New York." Jane was rushing breathlessly to the heart of her tragedy. "This is my very first trip as buyer, and--it will be my last unless I can get through the lines and back to New York. I have seventy of the very last gowns from Poiret, from Paquin and Worth--you know what they will mean in the old town back home--and I must--just simply must get them through. You understand! With them, Hildebrand can crow over every other gown shop in New York. He can be supreme, and I will be--well, I will be made!" The kindly eyes were still smiling, and the woman's heart, which is unchanged even in the breast of an ambassador's wife, was leaping to the magic lure of that simple word--gowns. "But--but the banks refuse to give me a cent on my letter of credit. The express office says my checks, which I brought along for incidentals, can not be cashed. The steamship companies will not sell a berth in the steerage, even, out of Havre or Antwerp or Southampton--everything gobbled up. You can't get trunks on an aeroplane, or I'd try that. I just don't know where to turn, and so I've come to you. You must know some way out." Jane unconsciously clasped her hands in supplication, and upon her face, flushed now with the warmth of her pleading, was the dawning of hope. It was as if the girl were assured that once the ambassador's wife heard her story, by some magic she could solve the difficulties. The older woman read this trust, and was touched by it. "Have you thought of catching a boat at Gibraltar?" she asked. "They are not so crowded; people haven't begun to rush out of Italy yet." "But nobody will honor my letter of credit," Jane mourned. "And, besides, all the trains south of Paris are given up to the mobilization. Nobody can ride on them but soldiers." The lady of the embassy knit her brows for a few minutes while Jane anxiously scanned her face. Finally she spoke: