His aristocracy in Heaven.

The old lady led us out of the house. There was one more thing she
wished to show us. The sunset light was still in the tree-tops,
but her eyes were dim; she thought that night had already gathered.
Holding her lamp above her head, she pointed to a statue in a niche
above the doorway. It had been placed there by order of the King of
France after Joan was dead. But it wasn't so much the statue that she
wanted us to look at; it was the mutilations that were upon it. She
was filled with a great trembling of indignation. "Yes, gaze your fill
upon it, Messieurs," she said; "it was _les Boches_ did that. They
were here in 1870. To others she may be a saint, but to _them_--Bah!"
and she spat, "a woman is less than a woman always."

When we turned to go she was still cursing _les Boches_ beneath her
breath, tremblingly holding up the lamp above her head that she might
forget nothing of their defilement. The old dog rattled his chain as
we passed; he knew us now and did not trouble to come out. The dead
leaves whispered beneath our tread.

At the gate we halted. I turned to my American soldier. "How long
before you go into the line?"

He was carrying the little French girl in his arms. As he glanced
up to answer, his face caught the sunset. "Soon now. The sooner, the
better. She ...," and I knew he meant no living woman. "This place ...
I don't know how to express it. But everything here makes you want
to fight,--makes you ashamed of standing idle. If she could do
that--well, I guess that I...."