Approaching them a few yards from the house were Alice Ashton and Bettina Graham. At once Alice took charge of her sister and Bettina of their Camp Fire guardian.
Both girls reported that the house they had discovered was entirely abandoned and that they had taken possession of it for the night. Supper was ready and waiting.
An hour after the entire party was asleep.
CHAPTER V
Armistice Day in Paris
It was shortly before eleven o’clock on the morning of November eleventh when the bells of Paris began pealing.
The following instant a group of young American girls who had been seated about a tiny fire in a large, bare room, jumped hurriedly to their feet.
“It has come at last, the Germans have signed the armistice! Vive la paix!” one of them exclaimed.
Her words were almost drowned in the noise of the firing of guns, the thunder of cannon, noises to which Paris had been listening for the past four years in bitterness, but which she now heard with rejoicing.
“Let us start out at once, Aunt Patricia, to take part in the celebration before the streets become too crowded,” Peggy Webster suggested. “What luck to be in Paris today! I should rather be here than in any city in the world at the present time, for surely the city which has suffered most through the war must rejoice most!”
As she finished speaking, Peggy walked over to a window and flung it open. Already they could hear the sounds of cheering. Below Peggy could see people running into the street, windows of other houses being thrown open. Voices were calling, vive, vive everything, except, “la guerre.”