Peace had come again.

And in her shining bassinet Peace Europa breathed softly through a mouth like a damp red rose, waved a tiny arm feebly, uncurled the new-born hand, with its pearly nails, as if she would catch and hold to her baby breast--forever and a day--the new-born happiness that had come to earth with her.

Beside her in the wee hospital crib, sharing the soft blanket in which the welcoming nurse had wrapped her, slumbered another, her Heavenly Twin--the Babe of Peace.

So it seemed to nurses and doctors who stole near to look at her, lying all oiled and shiny!

“If ever a baby was born at the hour of fate, she was!” breathed the intern, the house-doctor, beaming through his glasses upon her. “And, by George! the mite seems to know it, too. Did you ever before see such a placid smile upon a new-born thing?”

“I never did,” replied the feminine superintendent of the Hospital. “I’m afraid I’ll have to keep out of the ‘baby-room,’--else I’ll break every rule--take her up now and again, to cuddle her, just for the sake of this won-der-ful hour in which she first saw--the--light.”

“Yes! and spoil her for her mother to take care of, afterwards--make her as nervous as a witch. I guess even my young sister--fifteen-year-old sister who’s a Camp Fire Girl and has taken a course in Baby Craft--would have more self-control than that,” rebuked the intern, but leniently, joy oozing through his glasses; for his dearest chum was at the front, that devastated front, in far-away France--and now there was a chance of seeing him again.

“I feel that way, too, doctor,” said the superintendent, interpreting the look, not the rebuke. “My twin brother is over there. He’s been wounded over and over again. Oh! how I dreaded his taking part in the next big drive. No need for it now! Will you listen to the whistles and horns--that hooting klaxon. Why! the world’s gone mad. And to think that this baby--a soldier’s child, too--should be born just at the moment, or a few minutes before it, that the word went out to cease firing!” The superintendent wiped her eyes.

“Was ever such a heavenly herald?” breathed the doctor.

“Her mother feels so. She says the child is born for greatness. She has named her already, Peace Europa--Peace Europa Bush.”

“Gosh! Some name! A big contract to fasten upon six pounds and three-quarters of soft pink flesh and gristly bone,” mocked Dr. Lemuel Kemp. “Well! I suppose the heavenly infant will hold an unconscious reception, all day long, of those who are privileged to be admitted--in this Hades of a room.” He sniffed at the hothouse atmosphere of the baby-room--extremely hothouse--in which humanity’s latest buds--seventeen of them, with Europa as the center--were unfolding. “I’ll have to tip that young sister of mine the word to come round and see her. I suppose she’s somewhere out at the heart of the clamor now--in the crowded streets, with the rest of the family--the rest of the world--gone mad over the Armistice being signed. But, oh! she’ll have a fringe of enthusiasm left for the Peace baby,” smilingly. “She has been taking care of a neighbor’s child, two months old, for an hour a day lately; she showed me a pretty flame-colored honor-bead she had received for it.”

“A neat way of gilding the pill of service!” smiled the superintendent.

“Say, rather, of transforming it into a sugar pellet,” was the man’s reply, as the two left the tropical atmosphere of the hospital nursery.

Yes, War was over. Simultaneously with the birth of little Peace the word had gone forth to a hacked and harrowed and weary world to cease firing!

No wonder that the young Day, born with her, had gone mad--outside the hospital--a brimming-over child that could not contain its own happiness; that from shore to shore bells rang, sirens sang, klaxons hooted themselves hoarse--men and women, too--while underneath the wild riot--vociferous glee--tears baptized the dawn in many a home; radiant joy-tears on behalf of those who would come back, through which, like a reflection of the morning-star in ocean, shone the gold star of memory for those who would not!

But the star of service had not set. The wings which had come through the game, undrooping, must be spread anew for tried, if tamer, lights.

And so, as Europa still lay, oiled and shining, teasing the air with her first pin-prick cries--ere yet she was four hours old--there arrived two visitors to see her!

One was blinking like the sleepiest Owlet ever caught abroad at daylight; she had been awake since three, abroad since thirty minutes past; she was the doctor’s sister, Lilla Kemp, Little Owl, of the Morning-Glory Group of Camp Fire Girls--a Glory Unit now, as it paraded the streets in a body, radiating ecstasy and anticipatory reunion--longed-for reunion with the brothers over there.

The other, being by name and nature of the order of the flame, looked as if she could never “drowse” again, as if she had caught the very heart of the sunlight joy upon the tips of her shading eyelashes and held it there in twinkling points of gold.

“I’ve made the duckiest--dearest--dandiest--little set of baby-clothes for her--for Peace Europa--her mother told me, long ago, that if she happened to be born on Peace Day, she would name her that,” said Sesooā, the Flame. “You should see them, Lil, the sweetest little dress--I put every teeny, tiny, microscopic stitch in it myself,”--there was a drop of water on the gold lashes now--“the daintiest fine linen gertrude and tiny shirtie. You see, I knew she was a soldier’s child--and due to arrive about this time.”

“And you’ll exhibit them, won’t you, at our next ceremonial meeting--a Peace Ceremonial, the Guardian said it would be, if the Armistice went through; she’s planning for it already. They’ll mean a new honor for hand craft, a pretty green honor-bead--those dear little baby-clothes.”

“Oh! I can hardly think about that now, or of anything, except--except that they’re a thanksgiving set--offering,”--the tears brimmed over at this golden point, two of them dropped upon Peace Europa’s blanket, saluting the invisible peace twin, new-born Peace Angel, sleeping beside her--“a thanksgiving offering because Iver’s coming back.... Oh! I can’t be s-sure yet, of course! He’s been wounded so often, burned with mustard gas, lost--lost all his beautiful wig, as he jokingly said--his hair, you know, burned off.
“But when you come back,
As you will come back!”

The sister’s tear-breathed chant--each word a whirling joy-center--was crooned into Europa’s hooding blanket. “Isn’t she the darlingest baby you ever saw--little Peace Angel?” added Sara Davenport very softly. “I’m going to adopt her in a way; take care of her for an hour a day later on, if her mother will allow me, as you have been doing with that neighbor’s baby--Lilla.”

“Why don’t we adopt her forthwith, as a Group, directly she’s out of the hospital, make her clothes for her, bring her toys, and when ............