Judy had, clasped in her arms, a package of mail, unopened except for the letter on top, which was the one that poor, brave Mrs. Brown had written her. She had kept throughout the letter the same gallant spirit of belief in her son’s safety, but Judy could not take that view.

“Gone! Gone! and all because of poor miserable, no-account me!” her heart cried out in its anguish, but she shed no tear and made no sound. Her face, glowing with health and spirits only a few minutes ago, was now as pale as a ghost and her eyes had lost their sparkle.

PÈre Tricot hastened towards her as she came slowly down the street.

“My dear little girl, what is it?”

“He is drowned and all for me—just my stubbornness!”

“Who? Your father?”

“No!”

“Your brother, then?”

“I have no brother.”

“Ah, then, your sweetheart? Your fiancÉ?”

“I—I—sometime he might—that is, we were not fiancÉd, not exactly.”

The old man drew her down on the bench beside him:

“Now tell me all about it, ma pauvre petite.”

And Judy told him of her friends in Kentucky. Of Molly Brown and her brother Kent; of her own stubbornness in not leaving France when the war broke out; and then she translated Mrs. Brown’s letter for him.

“Ah, but the good lady does not think he is drowned!”

“Yes, but she is so wonderful, so brave.”

“Well, are you not wonderful and brave, too? You must go on with your courage. If a mother can write as she has done and have faith in le bon Dieu, then you must try, too—that will make you worthy of such a belle mÈre. Does she not say that two passengers were seen to be saved by the enemy?”

“Oh, PÈre Tricot, you are good, good! I will try—if Kent’s own mother can be so brave, why surely I must be calm, too, I, who am nothing to him.”

“Nothing? Ah, my dear Mam’selle, one who is nothing does not have young men take trips across the ocean for her. But look at the spinach wilting in the sun! We must hasten to get the cooking done.”

Poor Judy! All zest had gone out of the morning for her. She put her package of mail in the cart, not at all caring if it got at the fishy end, and wearily began to push. PÈre Tricot, well knowing that work was a panacea for sorrow, let her take her share of the burden, and together the old peasant in his stiff blue blouse and the sad young American girl trundled the provisions down the boulevard.

“You have more letters, my daughter?”

“Yes, I have not read them yet. I was afraid of more bad news.”

“Perhaps there is something from the mother and father.”

“No, the big one is from Molly and the others are just from various friends.”

When they reached the shop, of course MÈre Tricot started in with her usual badinage directed against her life partner, but he soon tipped her a wink to give her to understand that Judy was in distress, and the kind old grenadier ceased her vituperation and went quietly to work washing spinach and making ready the fowls for the spit.

Judy took her letters to a green bench in the diminutive court behind the apartment which passed for garden, with its one oleander tree and pots of geraniums. Her heart seemed to be up in her throat; at least, there was a strange pulsation there that must be heart. So this was sorrow! Strange to have lived as long as she had and never to have known what sorrow was before! The nearest she had ever come to sorrow was telling her mother and father good-by when they started on some perilous trip—but they had always come back, and she was used to parting with them.

But Kent—maybe he would never come back! It was all very well for Mrs. Brown to refuse to believe in his being gone forever, but why should he be the one to be saved, after all? No doubt the passengers who were lost had mothers and—and what? Sweethearts—there she would say it! She was his sweetheart even though they were not really engaged. She knew it now for a certainty. Kent did not have to tell her what he felt for her, and now that it was too late, she knew what she felt for him. She knew now why she had been so lonesome. It was not merely the fact that war was going on and her friends were out of Paris—it was that she was longing for Kent. She understood now why she felt so homeless just at this time. She was no more homeless than she had always been, but now she wanted a home and she wanted it to be Kent’s home, too. Fool! fool that she had been! Why hadn’t she gone home like all the sensible Americans when war was declared? The Browns would never forgive her and she would never forgive herself. She read again Mrs. Brown’s letter. How good she was to have been willing to have Kent turn right around and go back to Paris for that worthless Julia Kean. And now he was gone, and it was all her fault! Ah, me! Well, life must be lived, if all the color had gone out of it.

She wearily opened the letter addressed in Molly’s handwriting. It was from her father, and in it another from her mother, forwarded by Molly. At last she had heard from them. They, too, hoped she had gone back to America. Had taken for granted she had, since they had sent the letters to Molly. She read them over and over. The love they had for her was to be seen in every word. Never again would she part from them. How she longed for them! They would understand about Kent, even though she was not engaged to him. And now she knew what Bobby would advise her to do were he there in Paris: “Work! Work until you drop from it, but work!”

Already the great range, that stretched the entire length of the tiny tiled kitchen, was filled with copper vessels, and appetizing odors were permeating the living room and the little shop beyond.

“Let me help,” said Judy bravely. “Must I mind the shop or do you need me here? I can’t cook, but I can wash spinach and peel potatoes.”

“Marie can look after the shop this morning, my dear child, so you go rest yourself,” said the good wife.

“I don’t want to rest! I want to work!”

“Let her work, Mother! Let her work! It is best so,” and Judy’s old partner got the blue bowl, sacred to mayonnaise, and Judy sat on the bench in the court and stirred and stirred as she dropped the oil into the beaten egg. Her arm ached as the great smooth yellow mass grew thicker and thicker, but the more her arm ached, the less her heart ached. When the bowl was quite full, she started in on a great basket of potatoes that must be peeled, some for Saratoga chips and some for potato salad. Onions must be peeled, too, and then the spinach cleaned and chopped in a colander until it was a purÉe.

The Tricots worked with a precision and ease that delighted Judy. She never tired of watching the grenadier turn out the wonderful little tarts. On that morning a double quantity was to be made as Marie was to carry a basket of them to “the regiment”; that, of course, meant Jean Tricot’s regiment. They had not yet been ordered to the front, but were ready to go at any moment.

The old woman put batch after batch in the great oven. They came out all done to a turn and all exactly alike, as though made by machinery. Then they were put in the show cases in the shop; and more were rolled out, filled and baked.

“Sometime may I try to do some?”

The old woman smiled indulgently at Judy’s pale face.

“You may try right now.”

Judy made a rather deformed batch but MÈre Tricot declared the children would not know the difference, and they could be sold to them. “The soldats must have the prettiest and another time you can make them well enough for them.”

So far, Judy had not shed a tear. Her eyes felt dry and feverish and her heart was still beating in her throat in some mysterious way. Suddenly without a bit of warning the tears came. Splash! Splash! they dropped right on the tarts.

“Never mind the tarts!” exclaimed the kindly grenadier. “Those must go to Jean’s regiment. They will understand.”

“I could not help it,” sobbed poor Judy. “I was thinking how proud Kent would be of me when he knew I could make tarts and wondering how many he could eat, when all of a sudden it came to me that he never would know—and—and—Oh, Mother Tricot!” and she buried her face on the bosom of the good old woman, who patted her with one hand and held her close while she adroitly whisked a pan of tarts from the oven with the other.

“Tarts must not burn, no matter if hearts are broken!”