leaded window-panes. A stove fed with pine-boughs warmed the drafty interior somewhat from the December cold. While the two newcomers were unpacking and settling themselves in their narrow quarters the hospital’s head nurse came in and talked to them, dropping down on the nearest chair to do so; for she was tired and glad of a moment’s rest. 

“You will think there is terrible confusion here, for we are all at loose ends,” she told them. “We haven’t enough nurses nor orderlies, and nothing is in smooth running order. I hope you won’t mind, for a few weeks, not having a regular routine but doing whatever presents itself.”“That will just suit me,” remarked Lucy, brushing her corn-colored hair before the little mirror. “Send me on all the errands you can think of, Miss Webster.” 
The head nurse laughed, looking kindly at Lucy’s pretty face, lighted by the smile that her unaffectedness made very attractive. “I’ll find plenty for you to do, don’t worry,” she said confidently. “When nothing else turns up, go about among the convalescents and talk to them of home.” 
“Are there bad cases here? What sort, mostly?” Miss Pearse asked. 
“Some are men who have been gassed and their lungs are injured. Those are the discouraged ones who think they can never get well. Then we have a good many with broken limbs slowly mending, and some recovering from pneumonia and trench fever. There are about eighty in all, and most of them getting on splendidly, if they would only forget their homesickness and that they must spend Christmas in Germany.” 
“U-um, but it’s not so easy to forget that,” murmured Lucy, understandingly. “And, though of course this hospital has fine air and all that, it’s not a very cheerful place, do you think? With all these German woods shutting it in?” 
“German woods are just like any other woods, Lucy,” said Miss Pearse laughing. “Don’t be making trouble. We’re ready now, Miss Webster.” 
The hospital wards were nearly empty for a part of the day, during which almost all the patients got up and sat on the verandas, or were wheeled about if they could not walk. Lucy was surprised to see a good number of French soldiers scattered among the Americans, and looking a good deal more cheerful than her own countrymen, as though they knew that their return home could not be much longer postponed. 
Miss Webster explained to her: “These Frenchmen were in need of special treatment—we have mineral baths here. Or else they were in American hospitals and were brought along with other convalescents. They will almost all go before Christmas.” 
Lucy was put to work in the diet kitchen, which she left at lunchtime to carry trays to those of the convalescents whose capricious appetites needed special encouragement. 
The trays 

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