When her father suggested that they let the sightseeing wait and take a walk, Keineth was delighted. She wanted more than anything else right then to talk and talk and talk to her daddy! There was so much to tell him!
"We'll have plenty of time to see all the interesting things," Mr. Randolph said. "We'll stay here a week or two longer." "Peggy, too?" asked Keineth.
"Peggy, too, of course!"
"Oh, what _fun_!" cried Keineth, squeezing her father's hand with both of hers. She fairly danced along by his side, so that he had to walk very fast to keep up with her light feet 'Way across the Park through the trees they could see the waters of the Potomac gleaming blue, and beyond the hills of Arlington. Two weeks--her eyes shone--two weeks with Daddy and Peggy!
"You know, Daddy, that Peggy is my very best friend!" Keineth said very solemnly. She commenced to tell him of Overlook and the happy summer days--of Stella, whom she had seen several times during the winter and had learned to love--of Grandma Sparks and her quaint old home--of Mr. Cadowitz and the hours in his queer studio--of the Jenkins cousins and the little Penny girls. He listened with a smile, perhaps not always able to follow her excited chatter, but certain from it that Keineth had found what he had hoped she would find when he had sent her to the Lees.
Then Keineth thought of a confession she must make.
"Is it dreadful, Daddy, but I have forgotten to be lonesome for Tante? I am ashamed because I do not think of her oftener. Where do you suppose she is?"
"I saw her, my dear! Think what a coincidence it was! When I was in Paris one of the secretaries from the American Embassy took me around to visit the soup kitchens they have opened up there to feed the needy children of the soldiers at the front. At the very first one we went into, a woman in charge came up to greet us--and it was good Madame Henri! I might have known she'd be doing something like that! She knew me, of course--the tears ran down her cheeks as she clasped my hand. She couldn't say a word at first. She herself took us through the place and as it was at noontime, we stayed to see her hungry family. It was a sight I'll never forget--women, shivering in ragged clothing, with babes in their arms and gaunt, unhappy faces and eyes that looked at you as if they were eternally asking something and afraid to ask! Most of them had some scrap of dingy crepe somewhere about them--had lost their men at the battle-front! And little children gulping down the hot soup as though they were starved! Tante said it was the only meal most of them had during the day. After her work was over she and I went into a little room to talk. I knew she wanted to ask me about you--'her baby,' she called you. When I told her you were well and happy she broke down and sobbed 'thank God!'
"She told me that her mother was dead and that her brother's wife and her little family were on a farm in northern France. When they did not need her longer she had gone to Paris to help.
"'Give her my love,' she said to me--I knew she meant you. 'Keep her safe! It is my one comfort in these terrible days that she is not suffering! I love America--but I can never go back--my work is here!' I knew then that until the end Madame Henri would stick to her post and help wherever she could do the most good. She is a noble woman!"