At this moment Miss Patricia was intending to pay a call to offer her congratulations to Elise and her grandmother and also to learn if Elise had seen Mrs. Burton or heard any definite information concerning her. The visit was not one to which she looked forward with pleasure, but was due to the fact that Mrs. Burton had asked it of her as a favor. Miss Patricia's use of the French tongue was so impossible that all conversation between her and her French neighbors was an agony. Moreover, her unconsciously fierce manner seemed always to disconcert the courteous peasants. Nevertheless, the old men and women and children whom she met on the road into the village and later upon the village streets bowed to her with more than ordinary friendliness. If they could not comprehend her words or her manner, the value of her kindness they could understand. A child ran out of one of the houses and unexpectedly presented Miss Patricia with a little battered image of St. Joseph, and although St. Joseph is one of the patron saints of marriage, Miss Patricia accepted her gift with warm appreciation. An hour later, when she received the first intimation of what had occurred, Miss Patricia was standing in the little yard in front of their hut with Grand'mere and Elise. There was no restraint about Grand'mere's conversation now that her granddaughter was restored to her; indeed, she was pouring forth such a flood of rapid speech that Miss Patricia had the sensation of drowning in a sea of words of which she could understand about one in fifty. Nevertheless, it was pleasant to glance now and then toward Elise, who was as charmingly pretty as her neighbors and friends had described her. From her weeks of enforced imprisonment and something nearly approaching starvation, the young French girl was thin and haggard. Yet as nothing more terrible had happened, she was too rejoiced over her return not to show delight and gratitude in every expression of her vivid face. Moreover, after being allowed to cross the borderland from Germany into France, she really had a meeting of a few moments with Mrs. Burton, who had given her the money and the information necessary for her homecoming. At the moment when one of Elise's friends ran into the yard from an unexpected direction, Miss Patricia's first sensation was that of relief. At least she could enjoy a short respite from her position of exclusive audience to Grand'mere. The woman appeared so excited and so full of some story she undoubtedly had come to tell, that immediately she became the center of attention. Moreover, a dozen other persons soon followed her until in a few seconds the little yard was crowded with gesticulating figures. Miss Patricia was about to withdraw when a single word arrested her attention. The word was of course pronounced in French fashion, yet in the past few weeks Aunt Patricia had learned to recognize its peculiar French intonation. The word was Mrs. Burton's name.