“Isn’t it a pity Tante is not with us? We shall miss her more than ever today,” Bettina added. “Yet I am glad she is not too ill to feel the deepest thankfulness even if she cannot take part in the celebration and we may manage to see her later this afternoon. Aunt Patricia, do you feel equal to going with us? The crowds may make you overtired. Don’t worry, we promise to be as careful as possible, but do let us hurry. I feel as if I could scarcely bear the four walls of a house ten minutes longer. I want to shout, weep, laugh over victory. Glorious France, how much she has suffered and how much she has won!”
“Nevertheless, Bettina Graham, there is no reason to talk in such a high-flown fashion,” Miss Patricia Lord returned, “as if you were making a speech on one of the boulevards. I think we had better be saying our prayers. Just the same please be quiet a moment while I try to think; the noise outside is sufficient without your increasing it. I am afraid it will not be safe for you Camp Fire girls to go out into the streets for at least another twenty-four hours. But most certainly I shall go, however, I will return as promptly as possible to let you know what I have seen.”
At this instant Miss Patricia removed the large horned spectacles, through which she had been reading the morning paper, and wiped the moisture from them carefully. She then wiped her eyes, but entirely unconscious of what she was doing.
Nevertheless, she may have remained unaware of the expressions upon the faces of the half dozen girls who were her present companions.
At this moment an arm encircled her waist.
“Really, truly, Aunt Patricia, you don’t think we can stay indoors when all the rest of Paris is rejoicing? You wouldn’t be so cruel as to ask it of us, you who have preached courage in the time of war, would not have us turn cowards with the approach of peace?”
And Mary Gilchrist looked imploringly into Miss Patricia’s fine eyes, wise enough not to appear to notice their unusual moisture.
“You come with us, Aunt Patricia, and I think we shall manage to keep together and not to lose either our heads or our way. Remember we made a safe retreat to Paris when the Huns believed they were soon to follow after us and take possession of the city.”
As Mary Gilchrist had just announced, it was true that a number of months before, after an arduous retreat, first from their farmhouse on the Aisne and later from the Château Yvonne, the Camp Fire girls and their guardians had arrived safely in Paris. During the following summer months they had lived in a French pension not far from the Place de la Concorde, while the long range German guns vainly endeavored to frighten the city with a sense of her impending doom.
At present neither Mrs. Burton nor Sally Ashton was with their Camp Fire group in the pension. Soon after their arrival, not having recovered sufficiently from her wound to endure the long strain and fatigue of the retreat, Mrs. Burton had again been seriously ill. By her surgeon’s advice she had been removed to a hospital nearby, where she had been for the past few months, and although by this time a great deal better, she had not yet rejoined her friends.