since I came out here that
I haven't gone to the station except on Sundays.

[Page Heading: SUNDAY]

_23 May, Sunday._--I went to Morning Service at the "Ocean" to-day, then
walked back with Prince Alexander. In the evening we drove to the
Hoogstadt hospital. The King of the Belgians was just saying good-bye to
the staff, after paying a surprise visit. He has a splendid face, and
the simplicity of his plain dark uniform makes the strength and goodness
of it all the more striking.

As I was waiting at the hospital the Germans began firing at a little
village a mile off. It is always strange to hear the shells whizzing
over the fields. We drove out to see the Yser and the floods, which have
protected us all the winter. With glasses one could have seen the German
lines.

Spring is coming late, and with a marvel of green. A wind blows in from
the sea, and the lilacs nod from over the hedge. The tender corn rustles
its soft little chimes, and all across it the wind sends arpeggio chords
of delicate music, like a harp played on silver strings. A great big
horse-chestnut tree, carrying its flowers proudly like a bouquet,
showers the road with petals, and the shy hedges put up a screen all
laced and decorated with white may. It just seems as if Mother Earth
had become young again, and was tossing her babies up to the summer sky,
and the wind played hide-and-seek, or peep-bo, or some other ridiculous
game, with them, and made the summer babies as glad and as mischievous
as himself. Only the guns boom all the time, and my poor little French
Marines, who drink far too much, and have the manners of princes, come
in on ambulances in the evening, or at the "poste" a hole is dug for
them in the ground, and they are laid down gently in their dirty coats.

Mother Earth, with her new-born babies, stops laughing for a moment, and
says to me, "It's all right, my dear; they have to come back to me, as
all my children and all their works must do. Why make any complaint? For
a time they are happy, playing and building their little castles, and
making their little books, and weaving stories and wreaths of flowers;
but the stories, the castles, the flowers I gave them, and they
themselves, all come back to me at last--the leaves next autumn, and the
boy you love perhaps to-morrow."

Oh, Father God, Mother Earth, as it was in the beginning will it be in
the end? Will you give us and them a good time again, and will the
spring burst into s