“Oh, I’ve had such a scare,—such a _terrible_ surprise,” stammered the girl. And then she broke into a little laugh as she cried: “Oh, mother, you know the littlest chap? Well, he isn’t a boy at all; he’s a girl!” “A girl!” echoed three voices simultaneously, and then Mrs. Page gave a laugh, a laugh in which every one joined. It did not take Nathalie long to relate her experiences in the bathroom, and then she remarked: “I wonder if Mrs. Van Vorst knew he was a girl. It’s awfully funny. Oh, I’ll read her letter again.” The next moment, with the letter opened before her, she was slowly reading aloud: “Dear Nathalie: “I am sending you four boys instead of three. The fourth lad is a one-armed Belgian refugee, and his story is so pitiful I am sure, when you come to learn it, you will be glad I sent him to you. A Buffalo lady sent word to the Belgian Relief Committee that she would take one of a number of refugees recently arrived from France. But when she found that the poor lad had been mutilated by the Germans, her heart weakened. She claimed that she could not stand unpleasant things—what about the sufferings of the boy?—and returned him to the committee. “A member of the committee, hearing that I was looking for some boys, and being greatly distressed over the cruelty of the case, begged me to send him to you, if only for a little while, so as to give them a chance to place him later. I, of course, will be responsible for any expense he will be to you. I am sorry, but I had no opportunity to clothe him. He seems a strange, docile child. I think he is still living in the horrors of hell, from those terrible eyes of his. Oh, it is heart-breaking, but I know that you love children, dear, and I am sure that you are just the one to bring something of the child in him back to his face again. “His story is one of many. His village was overrun by the German soldiery, and the brave little lad, while trying to defend his mother from the atrocity of a German officer, was bayoneted, and finally lost his arm. His mother was carried away into Germany, but the boy believes her dead. I will not tell you the rest of the story, for some day he may want to unburden his child mind and tell you his pitiful take himself. His little yellow dog has been his comrade through all of his weary wanderings, the _only thing_ that remains to him of his once happy home, and no one had the heart to take it from him.