Thursday, conference day, came, when all the little white flags rush in from their provinces, bringing our splendid American men—their faces stern, strained, but with that beautiful light in them that testifies they are giving without measure the best they have to others. Never will any one, who has experienced it, forget the thrill he felt when he saw those fifteen cars with their forty-two men rushing up, one after the other to 66, rue des Colonies, nor the line of them all day on the curb with their fluttering white flags carrying the red C. R. B.! There were no other cars to be seen. Each person, as he passed, knew that these fifteen white flags meant wheat and life to 10,000,000 people. As I stood there I heard a band. I looked up the street and saw the German soldiers goose-stepping before their guard mount. This happens every morning, just a square above our offices. The white flags and the goose-step—they pretty much sum up the situation! I hurried inside, hoping fervently to hear the longed-for answer, as I put the name and my question. But the name was strange to S., he could tell me nothing, tho he felt sure that by keeping his ears open that week, he might learn something. How often through those days I thought of these two, caught in this war-night of separation. For two and a half years neither had been able to call across it even the name of the other. And then of the word thrown into the night with hope and prayer! On the next meeting day, as he hurried toward me, I could see from S.’s face that he had news. “Yes,” he said eagerly, “he is still there, he draws his ration—he is not suffering from want, he has enough left to pay for his food. But when he heard that somebody would possibly carry this news to his dearest living relation, he cried: ‘Oh! Would it not be possible to do just one thing more! I am eighty-two; I may die before this terrible war is ended. In pity will not somebody tell me before I die if any of my nieces has had a little baby, or if any one of them is going to have a little baby?’” “And now,” S. said, “you and I know that if the Relief stops, we’ve got to find out for that poor old man that there is a baby!” And I went about it. On Thursday, when he rushed over to me I could call: “Yes, there _is_ one! It’s Gabrielle’s! A little girl, five months old and doing beautifully!” “Hurrah!” he shouted, and hurried back to his tons and calories. It is four months since then, and I do not know if there are any more babies, or if that old gentleman of a distinguished house has had any other than this single connection with the loved ones of this family in over two and a half years. XII THE “DROP OF MILK”