Nona glanced in her direction. Sitting next Nora was the little French girl, Louisa, who had been in her care ever since their withdrawal from France. There had been no one along the way to whom they could entrust the child. In the little French girl's expression at the moment there was something which seemed to Nona to justify her point of view. Her face was white and her lips trembling as she too gazed out at the little German village. At the instant she had beheld a former German soldier walking along one of the streets. On his head was a round civilian cap and he had on a pair of civilian trousers, the rest of his costume was an old German uniform. And it was the sight of the uniform which had brought the terror to the child's face. Sonya saw the look and understood it at the same moment. In order that there might be no further argument she said gently: "Girls, I don't often preach, but perhaps I shall make the effort now. We are going into an extraordinary new experience for which I sometimes wonder if we are either mentally or spiritually prepared. During the past four years we have felt an intense bitterness against everything German; they represented for us all the forces of evil against which we were fighting. Now we are going to live among them and I suppose must not feel the same degree of hatred. Yet it will be difficult to change, impossible at first. I think it may be a number of years before we can learn to accept them as our friends. And yet I do not wish any of us to stir up fresh antagonism. One has always heard that the soldiers who have done the actual fighting have never the same hatred toward each other as the noncombatants, and perhaps we Red Cross workers stand somewhere in between the two. And yet Germany has only herself to thank that she has earned the distrust of the civilized world!" As no one replied, after remaining silent a moment, Sonya went on: "You know our soldiers have been given the order that they are to be as polite as possible and not to make trouble, but also they are not to fraternize with the Germans, even if living in their homes. I think the same order holds good with us." At this instant Bianca Zoli who had appeared to be almost asleep opened her eyes and yawned. "But I thought fraternizing meant becoming like brothers," she remarked irritably. "I don't see how there is any danger of our becoming too brotherly with the Germans, Sonya." The laugh at Bianca's speech, although annoying to her, helped to clear the atmosphere. In truth at the time the Red Cross girls were weary and anxious to reach the end of their journey, in order that they might establish their Red Cross headquarters.