If he had been commissioned by the government to help in giving first aid, he could not have acted with more sense of responsibility than he did in helping me take her home, standing motionless while she climbed into the cart, so weak with hunger, she confessed, that she could hardly move,--then speeding fast where the road was smooth, and going very slowly where the carters' wheels have left deep ruts in the mossy soil. He really has more than human sense at times! Don, of his own accord, leaped in beside the fugitive; at times I think that his spirit is really becoming more catholic, and that he demands less in the way of credentials and introductions than of old. The girl's pluck interested me, for, though she could hardly hold herself upright, she refused my help. Suddenly, from nowhere, a phrase flashed into my mind, "L'Independence Beige", and I knew--what afterward proved to be true--that she was one of the many Belgian refugees in England, though why she was wandering about by herself in this remote corner of England I did not know until afterward. As we jogged on, over the meadows and through the village street, she held herself so bravely that nobody stared, though she was white to the lips. She even managed to walk into the house, but, once inside, sank down on the couch and fainted quite away. Madge and I worked over her, giving her drops of warm milk with a wee bit of brandy, taking the shoes from her poor blistered feet, and bathing them. You should have heard Madge when I told her that I thought the girl was one of the fugitive Belgians; to take a red-hot poker to the Kaiser seemed to be her lightest wish for vengeance. When our guest was in bed, all fresh and clean, with her hair brushed smoothly from her forehead, I could see that she was a sweet and wholesome maiden, with a comely, housewifely air, and my heart ached for her sufferings. She ate a little, then lay with her eyes full of tears that she would not let fall; she kept winking her long lashes to keep them back. Don jumped up beside her and snuggled close; she smiled, lifted her hand to his head for a minute, then she went to sleep. Such sleep I never saw,--deep, long, dreamless; hour by hour she lay there, not moving all night long, for I crept in now and then: I could not sleep. Don kept watch until morning. She did not waken until after ten; there was a flush in her cheeks, and her eyes were starry, but in her face, young as she seemed, was a foreshadowing of the worn look of age and sorrow that the years should bring, not the German army! She wore an air of wistful questioning to which there is no answer, as she lay twisting weakly a simple ring about her third finger. We had a funny time trying to talk; La Fontaine's fables and Racine's _Athalie_, as taught in a young ladies' finishing school, are not the best basis for a conversation on the practical needs of life. I wanted to ask her if she liked sugar and cream in her coffee; all I could think of was