[8]

Mildred Thornton was the daughter of a distinguished New York judge and her mother a prominent society woman. But Mildred herself cared little for a butterfly existence. With the call of the suffering sounding in her ears she had given up a luxurious existence for the hardships and perils of a Red Cross nurse.

The youngest of the four girls, Barbara Meade, was a very small person with a large store of energy and unexpectedness. And the last girl, Nona Davis, was a native of the conservative old city of Charleston, South Carolina. Although a mystery shadowed her mother’s history, Nona had been brought up by her father, a one-time Confederate general, with all the ideas and traditions of the old South.

Yet in spite of these contrasts in their natures and lives, the four American Red Cross girls had spent more than six months caring for the wounded British soldiers in the Sacred Heart Hospital in northern France.

With the closing of the last story the news had come that the headquarters of the[9] hospital must be changed at once. At any hour the German invaders might swarm into the countryside.

[9]

There had been but little time to remove the wounded. So, not wishing to add to the responsibilities and finding themselves more in the way than of service, the four girls had escaped together to a small town in France farther away from the enemy’s line.

Here they concluded to offer their aid to the Croix de Rouge, or the Red Cross Society of France.

But this was in the spring, and now another autumn has come round.

One wonders what the four American girls are doing and where they are living.

The great square in front of the Grand Opera House in Paris surged with excited people.

Automobiles and carriages crowded with men and women, waving tri-colored flags, filled the streets. It was a warm October night with a brilliant canopy of stars overhead.

[10]

[10]

“Vive la France! Vive l’Armée!” the throng shouted, swaying backward and forward in its effort to draw closer to the great palace.

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