stolen her children. The people near her in the barracks complain
that she disturbs them at night, moans and talks aloud in her sleep,
jumps up and runs down the corridor laughing or crying: 'Here they
are!' They don't believe she ever had any children. They think
she is crazy and want her put out. But I don't agree with that. I
think she has had children, and now she has dreams."

"Send her away," growls the commandant; "send her to a sanatorium!
This camp is not a lunatic asylum."

"But," interposes the nurse in her most discreet voice, "she is
really a very nice woman. If you would allow me to take her on as
a housemaid in the general hospital, I think I could make something
out of her; at least I should like to try."

"Have your own way," says the commandant, relenting; "you always
do. Now tell me the next trouble. You have something more up your
sleeve, I'm sure."

"Babies," she replies demurely; "two babies from Amsterdam. Lost,
somehow or other, in the flight. No trace of their people. A family
in Zaandam has been taking care of them, but can't afford it any
longer. So the Amsterdam committee has sent them here."

The commandant has listened, his cheeks growing redder and redder,
his eyes rounder and more prominent. He springs up and paces the
floor in wrath.

"Babies!" he cries stormily. "By all the gods, da--those Amsterdammers!
Excuse me, but this is too much. Do they think this is a foundling