She had reached the door, after bidding them goodnight, when a sudden thought turned her back. And then Nathalie had her first solemn moments with her boys, as she told each one that, before getting in bed, he must say his prayers, so as to thank God for the good things that had been given them that day. The little Italian lad immediately drew out his rosary and began to say his beads, but Danny scratched his head in a dubious sort of way, and mumbled that it was so long since he had said his prayers that he couldn’t remember what he was to say. But this forgetfulness on Danny’s part was soon remedied, as the girl made him kneel by her in the moonlight that streamed through the window, and solemnly repeat, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” adding a few words as a suggestion to the boy as to what he should add to the prayer. Danny, with a brighter face, now began to prepare for bed, and Nathalie, as she again turned to leave the room, stopped to speak with the refugee. And then the girl’s eyes grew moist, for he had stolen into the darkest corner of the room, and, with his one hand solemnly upraised, was repeating a prayer softly to himself, while the little yellow cur stood at attention by his side. CHAPTER XIII “THE MOUNTAINS WITH SNOWY FOREHEADS” It was something of a surprise the next morning to Danny’s companions, to see a little maid, clothed and in her right mind, as Janet expressed it, come shyly into the dining-room,—a little maid who bore a very strong resemblance to the brown-eyed, curly-haired, whimpering little lad of the day before. The black eyes of the Italian boy, Tony, widened, and then, with a shy gleam of humor in their liquid depths, he nodded at the little girl, crying under his breath, “Oh, Boy!” But the little maid proved herself competent to manage the situation to her satisfaction, as she quickly made a face at him, for which she was properly rebuked by Nathalie, who, however, was on the verge of a laugh, while a ripple of amusement gleamed in her mother’s eyes. Jean, the Belgian refugee, stared with some perplexity at the small girl, and did not comprehend the curious situation until the children had left the breakfast-table, when Nathalie made it plain to him. The girl found that the morning hours were well-occupied, as she started right in to put her boys through their paces, as she called her drilling, so as to prepare them not only for a very happy, but a useful, summer’s stay. She had noticed, during the morning meal, that the children, with ready sympathy for the maimed boy, had been rather officious in trying to help him, and that his thin, sickly face had flushed with embarrassment and over-sensitiveness at the fact that to them he was an object of pity.