of the little garden within bounds and has put out a bed of begonias. In
Paris I met a charming American writer, the wife of a French artist, the
lady who wrote _My House on the Field of Honour._ She gave me a queer
little anecdote. On account of some hospital work she had been allowed
to visit Soissons--a rare privilege for a woman--and she stayed the
night in a lodging. The room into which she was shown was like any other
French provincial bedroom, and after her Anglo-Saxon habit she walked
straight to the windows to open them.

They looked exactly like any other French bedroom windows, with neat,
clean white lace curtains across them. The curtains had been put there,
because they were the proper things to put there.

"Madame," said the hostess, "need not trouble to open the glass. There
is no more glass in Soissons."

But there were curtains nevertheless. There was all the precise delicacy
of the neatly curtained home life of France.

And she told me too of the people at dinner, and how as the little
serving-maid passed about a proud erection of cake and conserve and
cream, came the familiar "Pheeee---woooo---_Bang!_"

"That must have been the Seminaire," said someone.

As one speaks of the weather or a passing cart.

"It was in the Rue de la Bueire, M'sieur," the little maid asserted with
quiet conviction, poising the trophy of confectionery for Madame Huard
with an unshaking hand.