Told in a French Garden / August, 1914

N OF J

e of a

ptor, had made an early and hurried run to Paris. So we saw little of each oth

hat he had seen in Paris-the silent streets-the moods of the women-the sight of officers in

was Monsieur le Curé talking to a handsome young peasant woman in the square before the church. We heard her say, with a sob in her throat,

est features of such a catastrophe is that it steadies a race,

strikes millions with the same pain, and they bear

have always mistrusted the effort of people outside the r

ruel idea," comment

, and weakens the race that accepts it. I believe victims of such disaster are hea

ght back a car full of books." The hint was taken,

ere all served, she pushed the tray back, folded her strong c

rs et Me

igarettes, a

con Hill. It was under the auspices of an Episcopal High Church in the days of Father Hall, and was rather English in tone. Indeed its matron was an E

ere she was brought up. In her early teens she had been bound out to a dressmaker, who had been kind to her, and, when her first employer died, Josephine, who had saved a little money, and longed f

mperaments. All girls willing to submit to control; girls with their gay days and their tragic, girls of ambition

e loved

s about their clothes, and a model of a confidant. Every one told her their little troubles, every one confided the

, looked younger, but was perhaps older. She was so tiny, and such a mouse of a

married. There was a great excitement. Little lonely Josephine, so discreet, who had sympathized with the romances of so many of her comrades, had a romance of her own. Such a hugging

ith the dressmaker who took her out of the asylum. He lived in Utica, New York.

citement over the news as there was at the Association at the South End. All the girls set to work to make something for little Josephine. Every one for whom she had worked gave her something. One lady gave her black silk for a frock. All the girls sewed a bit of u

the use of his spending his money to come east for her, and pay his expen

nks wer

ion to see her off, and I am sure that the crowd who saw u

me chattering about "d

little "wedding trip," and "very happy," and "he" sent his love, and it was signe

address, but she did not write often, and when

of the girls she had known were gone. Changes come fast in such a place. But there was great rejoicing, and those who had known her fo

etters cea

d was dead, that she never really had taken root in Utica, and now that she was alone, with her baby to s

I happened to be resting between two cases-and we decided that i

. I could not see that she had changed a bit. She did not look a da

, she dropped right back into the place she had left. Every morning she took the baby boy to the crêche and every night she took him home, and a b

story ended, and so far as

ss. A friend of hers, who had been her predecessor, and was now the Matron of an Orphan Asylum in New York State, was going to the hospital to have a cataract removed from her eye, and had written to ask her to come and take her place while

gone a

t was nothing she felt like talking about. But one evening when Josephine had been sewing for me

name, written down as a widow, a member of the Orthodox Church, had adopted a male child a few months old. I was interested. I did not suspect anything, but I asked the assistant matron if she remembered the case. She did, clearly. She said the woman was a dear little thing, who had come there shortly before, a young widow, a seamstress. She was a lonely little thing, and some one connected with the asylum had given her work, which she had done so well that she soon had all she needed. She had been employed in the asylum, and loved children as they did her. The

ed her, and they all called her 'dear little Josephine' just as we had. I talked of her with the clergyman and his wife. I asked questions that were too natural to rouse

ask me. Did

trons, and those girls whose little romances went on about her! No romances ever came her way. So she had made one all of her own. I proved to the Matron easily that what she had discovered by accident was not her affair, that to keep Josephine's secret was a virtue, and not

?" asked the

" replied the

or, "that is a good stor

the Trained Nurse. "I thoug

y," said the Lawyer. "She dovetailed everything so neatly. But what I want to k

One thing came along after another

hard luck to have had to imagine such

ittle Josephine, who arranged her own romance, and risked no disillusion. The

had no disillusion

said t

s Josephine?" as

ca was not the town,

aid the Journalist. "'Say no man'-or woman e

ad," said

cky little Josephine,"

elling the boy the trut

that she had forgotten it. No woman was ever s

lives?" aske

e smiled

at. It is a pity some of the rest of us childless slackers had n

he did not realize anything of that.

?" said t

the Lawyer, and she caught a laugh in h

only thinking. She was religio

e always wen

olinist, gently. "Accepted wha

was getting at. Well then, when her son me

Violinist, "his own

e' to all the Heavenly Host half an hour after she entered the 'gates of pearl.' Don't look shoc

oo far," interrupted th

only going to say-there

in your head. Drop i

od night." And he went up to bed, and we all soon followed him, and I imagine n