One afternoon and evening in each fortnight Belinda spent at home. There was a great contrast in character between aunt and niece. Aunt Roberta was all French; her niece displayed some Teutonic traits of character.
Grandfather Melnotte and Grandfather Genau had both come to America as young men. Belinda, as a second generation American girl, held few prejudices of either nation. But Aunt Roberta had no good word now for the Genaus.
"Alboche," she frequently said. "A brutal, stupid people. Your Grandfather Genau was a gross man—he ate and drank e-nor-mously. He died of an apoplexy."
"Poor man!" sighed her niece.
"And your Grandmother Genau was huge—she suffered of an avoirdupois. She would have won a prize for flesh in a street fair—cer-tain-lee!"
"I fear I may be too stout," Belinda would say mildly.
Aunt Roberta had spent all her girlhood in a French convent at Montreal. Then, for many years, she had lived in Paris. Until of late she had spoken English so seldom that she used the language in a way all her own—not brokenly or with much accent, but with most amusing transpositions. She would have gladly spoken French altogether, only when she undertook to do so Belinda would not reply.
"I am American—American, I tell you, Auntie!" the girl would cry. "We speak English here in New York. That I am both German and French by blood is enough. I will speak neither of those languages now—unless I am obliged to."
She had refused to listen to her aunt's diatribes against the Germans since the war had begun; but in truth she felt the two nationalities of her forebears warring within her heart. She pitied both peoples with all her sympathetic nature. She thought much on the unfortunates struggling in the battle lines. Her hospital work broadened her sympathy for all suffering. It is not always so. Some it makes callous.
As the end of Belinda Melnotte's two years of hospital probation drew near, she felt stronger cords drawing her toward those centers of activity, the field hospitals of France and Belgium. But she had not mentioned this feeling to any one.