themselves." And Julian is scrutinizing a map of our area.

Everyone is so glad to be going up right into it now. That pottering
about at home was most irritating. Just spit and polish, spit and polish
all the time since August, 1914.

We are all getting cramp, and have to stand up occasionally. Toby has
smoked his fourteenth pipe.

Oh, look! What a lovely rainbow! Treble. And under it a village with an
estaminet, a dozen slate-roofed houses, and a very new château, hideous
with scarlet bricks and chocolate draw-bridge and pepper-pot turrets.
Poplars and more poplars. Still we rumble along through symmetrical
France.


_June 7._

We are in one of the most lovely old French châteaux I have ever
imagined. Half château, half farm, fifteen miles behind the line. We
remain here for two or three days. Arrived late last night, tired and
grubby. But, O ye gods, when dawn began to reveal this old courtyard
with its hens and chickens and pigeons! On one side the old house with
its faded shutters. On the other side the old gateway with a square
tower and a pigeon-cote above. Along the other sides old barns. The
country round we have hardly seen, but it looks exquisite. There are
several most attractive foals in a field close by.

And inside the château funny old-fashioned things--old beds with frowsty
canopies, and old wall-papers with large designs in ferns and