She was visiting relations in Liege when the war broke out.  On the Sunday she went for a walk on the embattlements and was turned back.  Baulked in this direction, she strolled out towards the country and found men digging trenches.  That was the first she knew that war was rumoured.  On the Tuesday, two days later, Hun shells were detonating on the house-tops.  She was held prisoner in Liege for some months after the Forts had fallen and saw more than all the crimes against humanity that the Bryce Report has recorded.  At last she disguised herself and contrived her escape into Holland.  From there she worked her way back to America and now she is at Grecourt, starting shops in the villages, educating the children, and behaving generally as if to respond to the “Follow thou me” of the New Testament was an entirely unheroic proceeding for a woman.

And what are these women doing at Grecourt?  To condense their purpose into a phrase, I should say that by their example they are bringing sanity back into the lives of the French peasants.  That is what the American Fund for French Wounded is doing at Blerancourt, what all these reconstruction units are doing in the devastated areas, and what the American Red Cross is doing on a much larger scale for the whole of France.  At Grecourt they have a dispensary and render medical aid.  If the cases are grave, they are sent to the American Hospital at Nesle.  They hunt out the former tradespeople among the refugees and encourage them to re-start their shops, lending them the money for the purpose.  If the men are captives in Germany, then their wives are helped to carry on the business in their absence and for their sakes.  Groups of mothers are brought together and set to work on making clothes for themselves and their children.  Schools are opened so that the children may be more carefully supervised.  Two of the girls at Grecourt have learnt to plough, and are instructing the peasant women.  Cows are kept and a dairy has been started to provide the under-nourished babies of the district.  An automobile-dispensary is sent out from the hospital at Nesle to visit the remoter districts.  It has a seat along one side for the patient and the nurse.  Over the seat is a rack for medicine and instruments.  On the opposite side is a rack for splints and surgical dressings.  On the floor of the car a shower-bath is arranged, which is so compact that it can be carried into the house where the water is to be heated.  The water is put into a tub on a wooden base; while the doctor manipulates the pump for the shower, the nurse does the scrubbing.  Most of the diseases among the children are due to dirt; the importance of keeping clean, which such colonies as that at Grecourt are impressing on all the people whom they serve, is doing much to improve the general state of health.  In this direction, as in so many others, the most valuable contribution that they are making to their districts is not material and financial, but mental—­the