Mademoiselle Gaston had played her part in it all.  When the Germans were advancing upon Noyon, she had stuck to her post and remained in the hospital where she nursed her compatriots under enemy rule during the first occupation of the city.  Something about her had made them treat her with respect, although I have been told that the Prussian officers were always vaguely uncomfortable in her presence.  There was, perhaps, not enough humility in her clear eyes, and they worked her to the breaking point.  Yet so impeccable and businesslike was her conduct that they could never convict her of any infringement of rules.  Little did these pompous invaders suspect how this slender capable girl with the hazel eyes was spicing the hours behind their backs, and drawing with nimble and irreverent pencil portraits of her captors, daring caricatures which she exhibited in secret to the terrified delight of her patients.  Luckily for her this harmless vengeance had not been discovered, for doubtless she would have paid dearly for her Gallic audacity.

She was small of stature and very thin.  Not even the nurse’s flowing garb could conceal the angularity of her figure.  One wondered how so fragile a frame could have survived the crashings and shakings of war.  What secret of yielding and resisting was hers?  The tension, nevertheless, had left its mark upon her young face; had drawn the skin over the aquiline profile, and compressed the sensitive mouth in a line too rigid for her years.  This severity of feature she aggravated by pinning her coiffe low over a forehead as uncompromising as a nun’s.  Not a relenting suggestion of hair would she permit.  Yet whatever of tenderness or hope she strove thus to hood, nothing could suppress the beauty of her luminous eyes; caressing eyes that belied her austere manner.  No sight of blood nor weariness, no insult had hardened them.  Even when their greenish depths went dark and wide with reminiscence, a light lurked at the bottom—­the reflection of something dancing.  Yes, everybody loved Mademoiselle Gaston.

For weeks we had seen it coming.  She had told us of her engagement at breakfast one Monday morning after a week-end visit to her married sister in Paris.  It had seemed a good business proposition.  She announced it as such, calmly, with a frankness that astonished my American soul.  We were pleased.  She would have a chateau and money, and a de before her name.  Best of all she would have peace and companionship after her lonely struggles.  On the whole we were very much pleased.  Madame de Vigny and her gentle niece were entirely delighted.  Noyon was vociferous in its approval and congratulations.  I could have wished—­but at least I did not thrust any transatlantic notions into the general contentment.