She had let the cloak slip from her shoulders, and stepped to the edge of her unsteady stage. Her eyes burned large in a face grown suddenly grave . . . For a moment she reminded him again of Sophy Wicks. "Only a few words, really," she began, apologetically; and the cellar started a cheer of protest.

"No—not that kind. Something different . . ."

She paused long enough to let the silence prepare them: sharp little artist that she was! Then she leaned forward. "This is what I want to say: I've come from the French front—pretty near the edge. They're dying there, boys—dying by thousands, now, this minute. . . . But that's not it. I know: you want me to cut it out—and I'm going to . . . But this is why I began that way: because it was my first sight of—things of that sort. And I had to tell you—"

She stopped, pale, her pretty mouth twitching.

"What I really wanted to say is this: Since I came to Europe, nearly a year ago, I've got to know the country they're dying for—and I understand why they mean to go on and on dying—if they have to—till there isn't one of them left. Boys—I know France now—and she's worth it! Don't you make any mistake! I have to laugh now when I remember what I thought of France when I landed. My! How d'you suppose she got on so long without us? Done a few things too—poor little toddler! Well—it was time we took her by the hand, and showed her how to behave. And I wasn't the only one either. I guess most of us thought we'd have to teach her her letters. Maybe some of you boys right here felt that way too?"

A guilty laugh, and loud applause.

"Thought so," said Miss Warlick smiling.

"Well," she continued, "there wasn't hardly anything I wasn't ready to teach them. On the steamer coming out with us there was a lot of those Amb'lance boys. My! How I gassed to them. I said the French had got to be taught how to love their mothers—I said they hadn't any home-feeling—and didn't love children the way we do. I've been round among them some since then, in the hospitals, and I've seen fellows lying there shot 'most to death, and their little old mothers in white caps arriving from 'way off at the other end of France. Well, those fellows know how to see their mothers coming even if they're blind, and how to hug 'em even if their arms are off. . . . And the children—the way they go on about the children! Ever seen a French soldier yet that didn't have a photograph of a baby stowed away somewhere in his dirty uniform? I never have. I tell you, they're white! And they're fighting as only people can who feel that way about mothers and babies. The way we're going to fight; and maybe we'll prove it to 'em sooner than any of us think . . .