But somehow everything acted aggravatingly mean, for she dropped the polish, and the powder flew all over; then she knocked the tray and the knives and forks clattered to the floor. O dear! what ailed things anyway? And how her arms ached trying to polish those horrid tarnished stains on the teapot! The tableware had never seemed so obdurate, nor the means for making it bright so utterly ineffective. “Oh, I guess I am the one who is ailing,” she exclaimed glumly, as she suddenly realized that her mind was not on her task, and that the elation of playing at being a patriot had departed, with Dick evidently, leaving her as limp as a rag. Oh, it does seem such a shame that we had to get into that war—Nathalie bit off her thought like a thread, resolved not to let her mind dwell on that forbidden topic. But how angelic her mother had acted when Dick went. Well, she was a dear, anyway, so brave. But suppose he _never_ _should_ come back after all. Something suddenly seemed to snap in the girl’s breast, and down went her head on the tray, into a heap of powder, while a great sob strangled out of her throat. O horrors! Nathalie’s brown head bobbed up from the tray, not very serenely either, for she had heard a step on the kitchen porch. Oh, Helen always came in that way! “Where _is_ my handkerchief?” The girl grabbed desperately at something white lying on the tray, dimly seen through a blur of tears, and began to scrub her nose energetically with alas, not her handkerchief, but the powder-cloth with which she had been polishing the silver! “Ah chee! Ah chee!” sneezed Nathalie again and again, while groping frenziedly, but blindly, for her handkerchief. She must have dropped it. And then Helen’s arms were around her, and she was kissing the flushed cheek. “What’s struck you, honey girl?” she asked in that gentle way of hers. “Have you got the influenza? But here’s a very necessary article at times, if that’s what you’re after,” she finished with a laugh, as she stooped and picked up Nathalie’s handkerchief from the floor. “Influenza? No,” blurted out Nathalie savagely, tortured to a pitch of desperation at her unfortunate predicament. “I’ve been rubbing my nose with that dirty old piece of rag I clean the silver with. Serves me right, I suppose, for being such a fool as to cry when I should be ‘on my job,’ as Dick says.” She shamefacedly tried to hide her red eyes from her friend’s keen gaze. “Oh, well, it will do you good to cry, Nathalie, dear,” advised Helen softly, as she stroked the brown head caressingly, “for you were quite a heroine when Dick went away, so courageous and cheery. Mrs. Morrow says you are the nerviest Pioneer she knows.”