“But what is your special work?” asked Nathalie, for the two girls were somewhat surprised and bewildered by all these high-sounding, official-like terms. To be sure, Grace had long been known as an expert driver, but she had never shown her efficiency in any way but by giving the girls joy-rides once in a while; yes, and once she had driven her father to New York. But war work, thought Nathalie, for this aristocratic-looking, sweet-faced young girl, whose eyes gleamed merrily at you from under the peaked army cap—with its blue band and the insignia of the Corps, a tire surmounted by Mercury’s wings—set so jauntily on the fluffy hair. To be sure the slim, trim figure in the army jacket, short skirt over trousers, and high boots did have a warlike aspect, but it was altogether too girlish and charming to be suggestive of anything but a toy soldier, like one of the tiny painted tin things that Nathalie used to play with when a wee tot. “Do? Why, I am a military chauffeur,” returned Grace patronizingly, “and in the business of war-relief work for the Government. At present I’m to act as chauffeur to one of our four lieutenants, Miss Gladys Merrill. Oh, she’s a dear! I have to drive her all over the city when she is engaged on some Government errand. You should see me studying the police maps, and _then_ you would know what I do. Sometimes we are called to transport some of the army officers from the railroad station to the ferry, or to headquarters. Then we do errands for the Red Cross, too. “Why, the other day I helped to carry a lot of knitted things down on the pier, to be packed in a ship bound for the other side; they were for the soldiers at the front. We do work for the National Defense, and for the Board of Exemption. I’m doing my ‘bit,’ even if it is a wee one, towards winning the war,” ended the girl, with a note of satisfaction in her voice. “O dear, but wouldn’t I like to drive an ambulance in France! But I’ve got to be twenty-one to do that sort of work,”—the girl sighed. “But did I tell you that brother Fred is doing American Field Service? I had a letter from him yesterday, and he said that he and a lot of American boys have established a little encampment of ambulances not far from the front-line trench. They live in what was once a château belonging to Count Somebody or Another, but now it is nothing but a shell. “Oh, Fred thinks it is glorious fun,” cried the girl, with sparkling eyes. “He has to answer roll-call at eight in the morning, and then he eats his breakfast at a little café near. He has just black bread,—_think of that_, coffee, and, yes, sometimes he has an egg. Then he has to drill, clean his car, and—oh, but he says it’s a great sight to see the aëroplanes constantly flying over his head, like great monsters of the air. And sometimes he goes wild with excitement when he sees an aërial battle between a Boche and a French airman.