seen,--all so well dressed; if my house was going up, it was going up in
its best clothes. I had just been uprooted once--a horrid
operation--and I did not propose to do it again so soon. To that my
mind was made up.

Luckily for me--for Amelie was as set as I was--the argument was cut
short by a knock at the front door. I opened it to find standing there
a pretty French girl whom I had been seeing every day, as, morning and
evening, she passed my gate to and from the railway station. Sooner or
later I should have told you about her if all this excitement had not
put it out of my mind and my letters. I did not know her name. I had
never got to asking Amelie who she was, though I was a bit surprised to
find any one of her type here where I had supposed there were only
farmers and peasants.

She apologized for presenting herself so informally: said she had come,
"de la parte de maman," to ask me what I proposed to do. I replied at
once, "I am staying."

She looked a little surprised: said her mother wished to do the same,
but that her only brother was with the colors; that he had confided his
young wife and two babies to her, and that the Germans were so brutal to
children that she did not dare risk it.

"Of course, you know," she added, "that every one has left Couilly; all
the shops are closed, and nearly every one has gone from Voisins and
Quincy. The mayor's wife left last night. Before going she came to us
and advised us to escape at once, and even found us a horse and
cart--the trains are not running. So mother thought that, as you were a
foreigner, and all alone, we ought not to go without at least offering