“What sort of an errand?” a young lieutenant demanded.

They exchanged glances.

“Shopping,” they said, and took more tea.

“Shopping, for what?” He was smilingly impertinent.

They hesitated.  Then:  “For mutton,” one of them replied.  Both looked relieved.  Evidently the mutton was an inspiration.  “We have found some mutton.”  They turned to me.  “It is a real festival.  You have no idea how long it is since we’ve had anything of the sort.”

“Mutton!” cried the novelist, with frankly greedy eyes.  “It makes wonderful soup!  Where can I get it?”

They told her, and she stood up, tied on her seven veils and departed, rejoicing, in a car that had come for her.

When she was gone Colonel M——­ turned to one of the young women.

“Now,” he said, “out with it.  What brings you both so far from your thriving and prosperous little community?”

The irony of that was lost on me until later, when I discovered that the said community was a destroyed town with the advance line of trenches running through it, and that they lived in the only two whole rooms in the place.

“Out with it,” said the colonel, and scowled ferociously.

Driven into a corner they were obliged to confess.  For three hours that afternoon they had stood in a freezing wind on a desolate field, while King Albert of Belgium decorated for bravery various officers and—­themselves.  The jealously fastened coats were thrown open.  Gleaming on the breast of each young woman was the star of the Order of Leopold!

“But why did you not tell us?” the officers demanded.

“Because,” was the retort, “you have never approved of us; you have always wanted us sent back to England.  The whole British Army has objected to our being where we are.”

“Much good the objecting has done!” grumbled the officers.  But in their hearts they were very proud.

Originally there had been three in this valiant little group of young aristocrats who have proved as true as their brothers to the traditions of their race.  The third one was the daughter of an earl.  She, too, had been decorated.  But she had gone to a little town near by a day or two before.

“But what do you do?” I asked one of these young women.  She was drawing on her mittens ready to start for their car.

“Sick and sorry work,” she said briefly.  “You know the sort of thing.  I wish you would come out and have dinner with us.  There is to be mutton.”

I accepted promptly, but it was the situation and not the mutton that appealed to me.  It was arranged that they should go ahead and set things in motion for the meal, and that I should follow later.

At the door one of them turned and smiled at me.

“They are shelling the village,” she said.  “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all,” I replied.  And I meant it.  For I was no longer so gun-shy as I had been earlier in the winter.  I had got over turning pale at the slamming of a door.  I was as terrified, perhaps, but my pride had come to my aid.