I confess I expected a different type of woman. I thought a different type necessary to handle the German invaders in the fashion Sister Julie handled them at Gerbéviller. I imagined a tall, commanding woman--like Madame Macherez, Mayor of Soissons--would enter the little sitting room where I had been waiting that sunny morning. In that little sitting room the very atmosphere of war is not permitted. There is too much close at hand, where nine-tenths of the city lies in ashes as a result of the German visit. So in that room there is nothing but comfort, peace and good cheer. Potted geraniums fill the window boxes, pretty chintz curtains cover the glass. Where bullets had torn furrows in the plaster and drilled holes in the woodwork the wounds were concealed as far as possible. It was hard to realize that the deep, rumbling roars that shook the house while we talked were caused by a Franco-German artillery duel only a few kilometers away. [Illustration: SISTER JULIE IN THE DOOR OF HER HOSPITAL] The little woman drew out chairs from the center table and we seated ourselves, she talking continuously of how glad she was that one from "that great America" should want to see her and know about her work. Ah! her work, there was still so much to do! She got up and toddled to the window, drawing aside the chintz curtains. "Poor Gerbéviller!" she sighed as we looked out over the desolate waste of burned houses. "My poor, poor Gerbéviller!" Tears stood in her brown eyes and fell upon the wide white collar of the religious order that she wore. She brushed them aside quickly and turned to the table, again all smiles and dimples. Yes! dimples, for although Sister Julie is small, she is undeniably plump. She has dimples in her cheeks and in her chin--chins I might say. She even has dimples on the knuckles of her hands, after the fashion of babies. Her face is round and rosy. Her voice low and mellow. She looks only about forty of her sixty years--a woman who seems to have taken life as something that is always good. Evil and Germans seem never to have entered her door. Then I remembered what this woman had done; how all France is talking about her and is proud of her. How the President of the Republic went to the little, ruined city, accompanied by the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, and a great military entourage, just to hang the jeweled cross of the Legion of Honor about her neck. I wondered what they thought when she bobbed her curtsy in the doorway.