you a place in the wagon--the chance to go with us."

I was really touched, and told her so, but explained that I should stay.
She was rather insistent--said her mother would be so distressed at
leaving me alone with only a little group of women and children about
me, who might, at the last moment, be panic-stricken.

I explained to her as well as I could that I was alone in the world,
poor myself, and that I could not see myself leaving all that I
valued,--my home; to have which I had made a supreme effort, and for
which I had already a deep affection,--to join the band of refugies,
shelterless, on the road, or to look for safety in a city, which, if the
Germans passed here, was likely to be besieged and bombarded. I finally
convinced her that my mind was made up. I had decided to keep my face
turned toward Fate rather than run away from it. To me it seemed the
only way to escape a panic--a thing of which I have always had a horror.

Seeing that nothing could make me change my mind, we shook hands, wished
each other luck, and, as she turned away, she said, in her pretty
French: "I am sorry it is disaster that brought us together, but I hope
to know you better when days are happier"; and she went down the hill.

When I returned to the dining-room I found that, in spite of my orders,
Amelie was busy putting my few pieces of silver, and such bits of china
from the buffet as seemed to her valuable,--her ideas and mine on that
point do not jibe,--into the waste-paper baskets to be hidden
underground.

I was too tired to argue. While I stood watching her there was a
tremendous explosion. I rushed into the garden. The picket, his gun on