country. So my family wrote to my cousin to ask news of my mother, who
was a very old woman. And after weeks and weeks the answer came
back--'Mother dead.'

"It was not so terrible that, monsieur, because my mother was old. But
then--he who was my dear friend," she always referred to her husband by
this term, "my dear friend used to write to us every day in those times.
He was fighting in Alsace, monsieur, and for his bravery he had been
promoted upon the field of battle to be an officer. He wrote every
single day to me and the children. We were always so united--never a
harsh word between us during all the years we were married--he was
always gentle and tender and affectionate--a good husband and father,
monsieur, and he sent the letter every day to my brother-in-law, who is
a soldier in Paris, and my brother-in-law sent it on to us.

"There came one day when he wrote to us saying that he was out behind
the trenches waiting for an attack which they were to make in two hours'
time. He had had his breakfast, and was smoking his pipe quite content.
There the letter ended, and for three days no letter came from my dear
friend. And then my brother-in-law wrote to his officer, and the answer
arrived--this, monsieur," she said, fumbling with shaking fingers in a
drawer where all her treasures were, and trying to hide her tears; and
handed me a folded piece of paper written on the battlefield.

It was from his captain, and it spoke of the death of as loyal and brave
a soldier as ever breathed. He was killed, the letter said, ten yards
from the enemy's trenches.

And it is so in every house that you go into in these villages. When the
billeting officer goes round to ask what rooms they have, it is