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In the little house of mercy teeks went by, and then a third

Soldiers ayly in their caps More andin the streets, Sara Lee saw one far overhead,

while balloon-shaped clouds of bursting shells hung far below it

Once or twice in the earlyso low that

one could easily see the black cross on each wing, reconnoitered the

village for wagon trains or troops Always they found it empty

Hope had almost fled now In the afternoons Marie went to the ruined

church, and there knelt before the heap of marble and masonry that had

once been the altar, and prayed And Sara Lee, who had been brought up

a Protestant and had never before entered a Catholic church, took to

going there too In so to the little structure, roofless as it was On quiet

days its silence was deeper than elsewhere On days ofthe

sound from within its broken walls seemed deadened, far away

Marie burned a candle as she prayed, for that soul in purgatory which she

had once loved, and now pitied Sara Lee burned no candle, but she