Do not his words recall those of the brothers of St. Francis? Like them, Boisset has summed up his whole life in these two words: simplicity and heroism. He is at others' service night and day, just as he desired to be. The Sister calls him "her right arm," something at which he only half shows his pride. He is the one that's called upon, with never any fear of putting him out, if there's anything to be done in the way of lifting some fellow on whom a specially delicate operation has been performed, or doing some other difficult bit of duty. "Boisset, Boisset!" You get accustomed to hearing his name called out each moment. And Boisset, untiring, runs from one bed to the other, with his mincing, weary step, incessantly. In his moments of leisure he harks back to his old trade, begging from the kitchen some left-over bits of milk and whites of eggs, with which he cooks up some sweet dishes for his beloved patients, by whom they are much appreciated. What strikes me especially in Boisset is his _joyful spirit_. This man, who deliberately leads the hardest kind of life, has a smile always on his lips, and cheerfulness always in his heart. In the little recess where he does the patients' dishes you can hear him humming the canticles, especially the magnificat, of which he is very fond, as he confided to me, because it's the song of joy. When I find myself with Boisset I always want to talk to him about "Dame Poverty" and "Charity, her hand-maiden." Our third orderly, the Marquess of X, belongs to one of the greatest Italian families. His mother was a French woman, and from the very beginning of hostilities, "he felt," as he put it, "the French blood boiling in his veins." He found a simple and admirable way of doing something for his mother's country accordingly, by coming and putting himself at the service of the wounded. He wanted "to perform the humblest duties," he particularly specified. He did each day, from morning till night, very humble and sometimes repulsive duties, without apparently recoiling from them. He is but one in the nameless crowd of orderlies, yet the patients very easily distinguish him from the others, and the consolation and care that he gives them are specially sweet to them, because it includes the admiration of a noble soul and of a whole race for the French soldier. The day he arrived, the Marquess of X, after making a tour of the wounded, came up to me with tears in his eyes. "What extraordinary reserves of energy and heroism the French still have," he remarked to me, much moved. "To hear these young fellows tell of the dangers they've gone through, talking about sufferings, not only without complaining of them, but laughing about them, is '_the finest part of it all_.'" V--STORIES FROM THE COTS OF THE DYING Sister Gabrielle accosted me this morning with a luminous smile: "We shall certainly save Number 32's leg. The work of disinfection is finished. The flesh begins to form again over the wound."