_September 17th._--The B----s, who to our envy have received special
passes to go to Denmark, got as far as Hamburg and then had their
passports taken from them. The Chaplain and his wife disappeared one
morning, and we learn that he obtained a special pass on the ground of
being a clergyman. He was heard to utter something about the "Bishop
of London," and perhaps that was the talisman. Lady M---- tells me
that they have arrived in Hamburg, we wonder what their fate will be!

A delightful story has just reached me from an Italian source. In the
church of a Convent Hospital in France, one of the sisters was
praying aloud with immense fervour, and when she came to the
"Confiteor" she said: "C'est ma faute! c'est ma faute! c'est ma tres
grande faute," whereupon uprose a Turco crying out: "Ah! non! ma
Soeur! c'est la faute a Guilleaume!"

_September 18th._--A letter at last! but only one from the American
Consul at Frankfort, saying that the Foreign Office wanted to know my
whereabouts as several friends had inquired about me and my safety. I
can't imagine why, when America rescued her stranded citizens long
ago, and sent them money to get home, we should be suffering like
this. Nothing more about the phantom train! Our nerves are becoming
wrought up, and we are developing unexpectedly irritable and
argumentative natures. The weather is amazingly windy and horribly
cold, one shivers in summer garments, and cannot afford to buy warmer
things. A leading article in the "Frankfurter Zeitung" gives us a
grain of comfort, since it is headed "Geduld und Zuversicht" (patience
and confidence), and begins,

"In consequence of the victorious news of the first weeks, those
remaining at home had become accustomed to constant victories, and
the pause in the news of the battlefield of the West is a great trial
of patience." Long may that trial last! On the whole we ought to be
thankful that we are in Hesse and not in Prussia. The Hessians are a
simple, kindly people, pleasant, and good tempered. I have known
Germany well for eighteen years. When first we travelled in the
Fatherland I found each Duchy, or Kingdom, or Principality, devoted to
its own particular Ruler, and little outside it mattered to its
people. Nowadays there are no Hessians or Wuertembergers, not even
Saxons or Bavarians, but all are Germans, and for one photograph of
the Grand Duke of Hesse and his Duchess you will see here one hundred
of "Unser Kaiser" and "Unsere