That is her charm! The Sisters are good women, they are very good; but they only pity us.

The Little One, she loves us.

That is the difference; do you see ?" It was all the difference--a wide difference; she loved them all, with the warmth and fire of her young heart, for the sake of France and of their common Flag.

And though she was but a wild, wayward, mischievous gamin,--a gamin all over, though in a girl's form,--men would tell in camp and hospital, with great tears coursing down their brown, scarred cheeks, how her touch would lie softly as a snowflake on their heated foreheads; how her watch would be kept by them through long nights of torment; how her gifts of golden trinkets would be sold or pawned as soon as received to buy them ice or wine; and how in their delirium the sweet, fresh voice of the child of the regiment would soothe them, singing above their wretched beds some carol or chant of their own native province, which it always seemed she must know by magic; for, were it Basque or Breton, were it a sea-lay of Vendee or a mountain-song of the Orientales, were it a mere, ringing rhyme for the mules of Alsace, or a wild, bold romanesque from the country of Berri--Cigarette knew each and all, and never erred by any chance, but ever sung to every soldier the rhythm familiar from his infancy, the melody of his mother's cradle-song and of his first love's lips.

And there had been times when those songs, suddenly breaking through the darkness of night, suddenly lulling the fiery anguish of wounds, had made the men who one hour before had been like mad dogs, like goaded tigers--men full of the lusts of slaughter and the lust of the senses, and chained powerless and blaspheming to a bed of agony--tremble and shudder at themselves, and turn their faces to the wall and weep like children, and fall asleep, at length, with wondering dreams of God.
"V'la ce que c'est la gloire--au grabat!" said Cigarette, now grinding her pretty teeth.