The next moment the four of them were bending over the figure of a young girl, who was wearing a close fitting cap and a long dark blue coat, and sewed on her sleeve a small Red Cross. Yet when Sonya spoke to her, she showed no sign of being able to reply and made no movement, not even to the raising of her lashes. When the chauffeur lifted and placed her inside the car she still seemed unconscious. "I think we had best go on to the hospital at once," Sonya commanded. "We are not more than a few moments' journey and whatever should be done for this girl can be better accomplished there." CHAPTER II _A Late Recruit_ A LITTLE before noon the following day, Mrs. David Clark, the wife of the surgeon in command of the Red Cross hospital near Chateau-Thierry, entered a small room in one of the towers of the old French chateau, which had been serving as a hospital for the American wounded. The room was in the portion of the building set apart for the use of the Red Cross nurses. Opening the door quietly and without knocking, Sonya stood for a moment in silence upon the threshold, staring in polite amazement at the figure she beheld sitting upright in the small hospital bed. The figure was that of a young girl with straight brown hair cut short and parted at one side, a rather thin white face with a pointed chin and large hazel eyes. There was a boyish, or perhaps more of a sprite-like quality in her appearance. As Sonya looked straightway she saw a fleeting picture of Peter Pan, before the girl turned and spoke to her. "You are Mrs. Clark aren't you? You are very kind to come to ask about me. I am sorry I gave you so much trouble yesterday; another mile or more and I should have arrived safely at the hospital and been none the worse for my long walk. You won't mind if I go on eating a moment longer, will you? I am dreadfully hungry and I have just succeeded in persuading the charming little girl who is taking care of me that there is nothing in the world the matter with me today, except the need for food. I really feel no worse from yesterday's experience, although it is nice to be so deliciously warm after one has come fairly near being frozen." As the girl talked, the older woman came and took a little chair beside the bed. The newcomer to the hospital, who had been rescued from the snow storm the afternoon before, Sonya now discovered was not so young as she had originally believed. On closer observation there were tiny lines about the girl's eyes, a little droop at the corners of her mouth, which might, however, be due partly to fatigue and exposure.