But like all big things the little house made a humble beginning.  A mere handful of men, daring the gibes of their comrades, stopped in that first night the door stood open, with its invitation of firelight and candles.  But these few went away with a strange story—­of a beautiful American, and hot soup, and even a cigarette apiece.  That had been Henri’s contribution, the cigarettes.  And soon the fame of the little house went up and down the trenches, and it was like to die of overpopularity.

It was at night that the little house of mercy bloomed like a flower.  During the daytime it was quiet, and it was then, as time went on, that Sara Lee wrote her letters home and to England, and sent her lists of names to be investigated.  But from the beginning there was much to do.  Vegetables were to be prepared for the soup, Marie must find and bring in milk for the chocolate, Rene must lay aside his rifle and chop firewood.

One worry, however, disappeared with the days.  Henri was proving a clever buyer.  The money she sent in secured marvels.  Only Jean knew, or ever knew, just how much of Henri’s steadily decreasing funds went to that buying.  Certainly not Sara Lee.  And Jean expostulated only once—­to be met by such blazing fury as set him sullen for two days.

“I am doing this,” Henri finished, a trifle ashamed of himself, “not for mademoiselle, but for our army.  And since when have you felt that the best we can give is too much for such a purpose?”

Which was, however lofty, only a part of the truth.

So supplies came in plentifully, and Sara Lee pared vegetables and sang a bit under her breath, and glowed with good will when at night the weary vanguard of a weary little army stopped at her door and scraped the mud off its boots and edged in shyly.

She was very happy, and her soup was growing famous.  It is true that the beef she used was not often beef, but she did not know that, and merely complained that the meat was stringy.  Now and then there was no beef at all, and she used hares instead.  On quiet days, when there was little firing beyond the poplar trees, she went about with a basket through the neglected winter gardens of the town.  There were Brussels sprouts, and sometimes she found in a cellar carrots or cabbages.  She had potatoes always.

It was at night then, from seven in the evening until one, that the little house was busiest.  Word had gone out through the trenches beyond the poplar trees that slightly wounded men needing rest before walking back to their billets, exhausted and sick men, were welcome to the little house.  It was soon necessary to give the officers tickets for the men.  Rene took them in at the door, with his rifle in the hollow of his arm, and he was as implacable as a ticket taker at the opera.

Never once in all the months of her life there did Sara Lee have an ugly word, an offensive glance.  But, though she never knew this, many half articulate and wholly earnest prayers were offered for her in those little churches behind the lines where sometimes the men slept, and often they prayed.