Half an hour afterwards Eugenia Peabody knocked at the door and opened it. She had with her a tall woman dressed quietly in a plain dark-blue dress fitting the lines of her figure closely. Even in the dusk she gave one a sense of beauty and poise, and there was an odor about her like lilacs.
She kissed both girls as if they had been real friends.
“I have been hearing of what you have been doing and I’m very proud of you,” she murmured. “I hope I may be useful too.”
But Nona half saw and half felt that the woman for whom she had conceived such an intense fancy looked very weary and sad.
CHAPTER XIX
The Test
One morning a short time afterwards, as the Red Cross ambulance drew within two miles of the field hospital, the chauffeur stopped.
For a quarter of an hour before, though no one had spoken of it, the four occupants of the wagon had heard the far-off echo of a tremendous cannonading. It was not possible to locate the sound.
Now the chauffeur turned to Dr. Milton.
“I don’t know whether we ought to report for duty this morning,” he volunteered. “I’ve an idea the trouble we hoped was pretty well over in this neighborhood has broken out again. We will probably get into the thick of things if we go much nearer.”