“We took Hero with us, and he was really the guest of honour at the party.  When Madame saw the Red Cross on his collar and heard his history, she couldn’t do enough for him.  She fed him cakes until I thought he surely would be ill.  It was a Red Cross nurse who wrote to Madame about her husband.  He was wounded in the Franco-Prussian war, too, just as was the Major.  Madame went on to get him and bring him home, and she says she never can forget the kindness that was shown to her by every one whom she met when she crossed the lines under the protection of the Red Cross.

“She had met Clara Barton, too, and while we were talking about the good she has done, Madame said, ’The Duchess of Baden may have sent her the Gold Cross of Remembrance, but the grateful hearts of many a French wife and mother will for ever hold the rosary of her beautiful deeds!’ Wasn’t that a lovely thing to have said about one?

“We start to London Thursday, and I’ll write again from there.  With much love from us all, Lloyd.”

The long letter which Lloyd folded and addressed after a careful re-reading, had not been all written in one day.  She had begun it while waiting for the others to finish dressing one morning, had added a few pages that afternoon, and finished it the next evening at bedtime.

“Heah is my lettah to Joyce, mothah,” she said, as she kissed her good night.  “Won’t you look ovah it, please, and see if all the words are spelled right?  I want to send it in the mawnin.”

Mrs. Sherman laid the letter aside to attend to later, and forgot it until long after Lloyd was asleep, and Mr. Sherman had come up-stairs.  Then, seeing it on the table, she glanced rapidly over the neatly written pages.

“I want you to look at this, Jack,” she said, presently, handing him the letter.  “It is one of the results of the house party for which I am most thankful.  You remember what a task it always was for Lloyd to write a letter.  She groaned for days whenever she received one, because it had to be answered.  But when Joyce went away she said, ’Now, Lloyd, I know I shall be homesick for Locust, and I want to hear every single thing that happens.  Don’t you dare send me a stingy two-page letter, half of it apologising for not writing sooner, and half of it promising to do better next time.

“’Just prop my picture up in front of you and look me in the eyes and begin to talk.  Tell me all the little things that most people leave out; what he said and she said on the way to the picnic, and how Betty looked in her daffodil dress, with the sun shining on her brown curls.  Write as if you were making pictures for me, so that when I read I can see everything you are doing.’

“It was excellent advice, and as Joyce’s letters were written in that way, Lloyd had a good model to copy.  Joyce, being an artist, naturally makes pictures even of her letters.  When Betty went away and began sending home such well-written accounts of her journey, I found that Lloyd’s style improved constantly.  She wrote a dear little letter to the Major, last week, telling all about Hero.  I was surprised to see how prettily she expressed her appreciation of his gift.”