two; and almost immediately after that the road turned into a street and
we were between solid lines of small cottages, surrounded on all sides
by people who fluttered about with the distracted aimlessness of
agitated barnyard fowls. They babbled among themselves, paying small
heed to us. An automobile tore through the street with its horn
blaring, and raced by us, going toward Brussels at forty miles an hour.
A well-dressed man in the front seat yelled out something to us as he
whizzed past, but the words were swallowed up in the roaring of his
engine.

Of our party only one spoke French, and he spoke it indifferently. We
sought, therefore, to find some one who understood English. In a minute
we saw the black robe of a priest; and here, through the crowd, calm and
dignified where all others were fairly befuddled with excitement, he
came--a short man with a fuzzy red beard and a bright blue eye.

We hailed him, and the man who spoke a little French explained our case.
At once he turned about and took us into a side street; and even in
their present state the men and women who met us remembered their
manners and pulled off their hats and bowed before him.

At a door let into a high stone wall he stopped and rang a bell. A
brother in a brown robe came and unbarred the gate for us, and our guide
led us under an arched alley and out again into the open; and behold we
were in another world from the little world of panic that we had just
left. There was a high-walled inclosure with a neglected tennis court
in the middle, and pear and plum trees burdened with fruit; and at the
far end, beneath a little arbor of vines, four priests were sitting
together. At sight of us they rose and came to us, and shook hands all
round. Almost before we knew it we were in a bare little room behind