"I'll go and find Aunt Patricia; perhaps I should have spoken to her first of my idea. Then after you have talked with her if you would like me to find Yvonne and ask her to come to you----" With these words, having managed to reach the half closed door, Sally disappeared. CHAPTER XVIII THE EXPECTED HAPPENS Miss Patricia Lord was on her way to the French village only a few miles from their farm house. Unless the call were urgent, rarely did Miss Patricia bestow her activities outside the environments of the farm, which of course included the house, garden, barns, fields, really a sufficient large sphere of activity even for her. It is true she had been an extremely practical benefactress to the entire neighborhood, yet her gifts had been made largely through other persons; Mrs. Burton or one of the Camp Fire girls reporting a special need among their neighbors, as promptly as possible Miss Patricia had seen that need supplied. So, as she took her walk on this summer afternoon, had she liked she might have given a good deal of credit to herself for the change in the appearance of the countryside which the past two months had wrought. A number of the peasants' huts near the road had been either entirely or partly rebuilt. But more important than the actual physical shelter, Miss Patricia's tractor had plowed its way over many acres which otherwise must have remained unproductive until, as far as the eye could see, the fields were now being made ready for planting. Even if German guns were thundering along the battle line, nevertheless behind that line the French peasants toiled on with their patience and their eternal industry. Today Miss Patricia was thinking of life's contrasts, of the peaceful scenes through which she was passing which only a few years before had been an altar of the world's carnage and which might soon be so sacrificed again. For it would seem as if the last gigantic struggle of the present war were now about to take place. Surely humanity would never pass through this universal Calvary again! Not yet had Mrs. Burton returned from her journey into southern France! A few days before, a letter stating that, having accomplished a portion of their mission, she, Mrs. Bishop and Monsieur Duval were preparing to start on their homeward way, had arrived for Miss Patricia, although the letter had been delayed for a week. A more important witness of their mission had been the actual return to the French village of a number of the refugees in whose welfare Mrs. Burton had been especially interested. Among them was the French girl, Elise.