Miss Patricia was discussing with him the question of increasing the number of cows upon the farm until a dairy could be run upon really scientific principles. She desired a dairy sufficiently large to supply milk to the nearby hospitals as well as to the babies in the villages. Up to the present time she had been largely interested in preserving the health of the young children who came within her sphere of effort. But realizing that milk at present was one of the greatest needs in France for the proper feeding of the wounded soldiers and of the convalescents, Miss Patricia was arranging for the shipment of a herd of a hundred cows from the United States. As a matter of fact, she was supposed to be asking Captain Burton’s advice upon the subject, though Miss Patricia’s method of asking advice was merely to announce what she intended doing.
After watching the two older persons disappear toward the barn, which had been restored until it presented a very comfortable aspect, Peggy Webster glanced up from her knitting to look earnestly at her companion.
“How long do you intend remaining in France to continue with the reconstruction work, Vera?” she inquired.
Vera Lagerloff was sewing upon a dress for one of the children in the neighborhood, since few of them had clothing enough to keep them warm and comfortable in spite of all that was being done for them in the reclamation districts by an increasing force of American women and girls.
Vera’s eyes followed the direction Miss Patricia’s tall figure had just taken.
“I intend to stay on indefinitely until the war is over and afterwards if I feel I can be of more use here than anywhere else. A few days ago Miss Patricia told me that she would be very glad to pay my expenses, as she believed I was ‘a laborer worthy of my hire.’ What an extraordinary woman she is and how much she seems to get out of life, if not for herself, then certainly for other people! I shall never forget our first meeting and the way in which she then took hold of the situation. I think none of us will forget her recent devotion to Mrs. Burton. Any one of us would have been willing to do what she did, only no one would have had the courage or the intelligence.”
Peggy nodded. “I have written mother pretty much the same thing you have just said. Certainly no one of our family can ever pay our debt to Aunt Patricia. Not that I should dare make the attempt!” Peggy added, smiling and looking a little anxiously at the sock she was about to finish. “But I wonder if I am envious of you, Vera, I mean of your planning to remain over here so long? Mother and father have written they would like me to come home as soon as I feel I am not especially needed and Tante has entirely recovered. They wish her to return as well, but I am by no means sure she will. There are moments of course when I am homesick and feel it my duty to be with my own people, now that Billy is gone and Dan has at last been permitted to volunteer. Then on the other hand, I naturally want to be in France while Ralph is here fighting. Have I told you that after Ralph’s visit to us at the farm my family has consented to our engagement. We have promised not to consider marrying until the war is over. I am not speaking of this to any of the other Camp Fire girls, Vera, only to you and Bettina. But I shall always think of you, even if the future should separate us for a long time, as if you were almost my sister. I suppose if Billy had lived you would have been my sister.”
In response Vera shook her head with its heavy mass of dark hair.
“I don’t know, Peggy. I am not at all sure. I don’t believe Billy’s friendship and mine were like that. Perhaps when he grew older he would have wished to marry a prettier and more romantic girl, but always he would have come back to me for criticism and praise. Yet I should never have wished to marry any one else and now I shall never marry any one.”
As there is no real answer to a speech of this character, Peggy Webster made no reply. What Vera’s future held in store for her was, according to an ancient pagan expression, “in the lap of the gods.”