Kirwin leaned from the calesa and looked anxiously up and down the narrow street. A solitary female figure, huddled under a dripping umbrella, was picking its way, with the delicate step of the dancer, between the pools of water that overflowed from the gutter on to the sidewalk. Kirwin sprang from the calesa. He pulled the astonished Mayhew after him. With one hand on Mayhew’s shoulder, he turned him in the direction of the huddled figure under the umbrella. “Go fit that heel to Cinderella!” he laughed. CÉLESTINE BY JAMES HOPPER From _Collier’s_ In March the war came much nearer to the town, and an aviation camp was set up just outside, in the wheatfields by the National Road. It took shape, as it were, overnight, as if by some enchantment; Célestine, from the round window of her garret room in the inn, saw the planes alighting like white birds in the rose of the dawn. They came five by five from the east; for two days they remained as they had landed, shelterless and inert, as if worn out. Then heavy trucks came rumbling, threw off bales of canvas and partitions of thin wood, and soon a flying camp stood complete, with its tents and its sheds, its hundreds of busy mechanics. Many of the white birds seemed wounded. Holes were in the wings, some of the wings trailed. The conductors of those weary dragons were sunken-eyed; their faces tattooed with oil, their hair matted. But a lull had come; somewhere in the hills to the east the new drive at last had been stopped; you could hear at night the soft drumming of the guns. The flying men cleaned up. Primp, in freshly pressed uniforms and shining boots, they strolled about, very young men, slim and elegant, twirling swagger sticks and parading gaiety. Gaiety, although each one of them bore stamped upon his heart, as pure gold is stamped, a small secret figure which stood for a certain day, a certain hour, the end of youth, of joy, of adventure and love. Mostly they passed by the inn, on their way to the brighter cafés at the centre of the town; but some of them stopped at the inn and sat at the tables under the trees. Célestine’s heart beat faster when they were there; she watched them as she worked; from a distance, for she did not wait on the tables. She was not allowed to wait on the tables because she was not pretty.