in Brussels, only a sufficient number to preserve peace and to enforce a surface loyalty to their conquerors. Barbara and Nona were in deep sympathy with the Belgians. Barbara because she was always enlisted on the side of the weak against the strong. Nona, possibly because as a South Carolina girl, she belonged to a country that had once been overrun by greater numbers. But Mildred Thornton and Eugenia insisted that they intended to preserve neutral attitudes. They were Red Cross nurses, not soldiers, and there is always another side to every story. [Pg 26] [Pg 26] As Nona's attention was so engaged by Mildred, even after the three girls arrived in Brussels, Barbara had little to do except make observations. This was not their first trip to the Red Cross headquarters, but they did not yet know the city sufficiently well not to enter it as strangers. Only in one place could Barbara discover a crowd and that was wherever a church stood. Women and children and an occasional elderly man were always entering and leaving the Catholic churches. Suddenly Barbara thought of Eugenia. Why had she not come with them this afternoon? They had been told to report to the Red Cross headquarters in order to be assigned to their work. Usually it was Eugenia who rigidly insisted upon obedience to orders. What could she have in mind this afternoon of greater importance? Barbara had paid a visit to Eugenia and the three children earlier in the day. She had found them contentedly playing at housekeeping in the one-room shack, which must once have been a small storehouse.[Pg 27] By one of the many miracles of war this little place had escaped destruction when the larger house was burned. [Pg 27] Eugenia, who was by nature a commander-in-chief, had set the children various tasks. Bibo, the lame boy, was gathering chips from the charred, half-burned apple trees as cheerfully as a small grasshopper transformed into a thrifty ant. The girl, Louise, was assisting Nicolete to spread their scanty covering upon a freshly washed floor, sedate as a model chambermaid. Barbara had watched them in some amusement before attempting to join Eugenia. It seemed difficult to remember the scarlet poppy of a girl whom she had first seen dancing for the French soldiers, in the present Nicolete. For one thing, Eugenia had demanded that the French girl wear
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