have always
led--would never want to destroy or change anything.

I was staying one year with Lady Derby at Knowsley, in Christmas week,
and I was present one afternoon when she was making her annual
distribution of clothes to the village children. I was much pleased
with some ulsters and some red cloaks she had for the girls. They were
so pleased, too--broad smiles on their faces when they were called up
and the cloaks put on their shoulders. They looked so warm and
comfortable, when the little band trudged home across the snow. I had
instantly visions of my school children attired in these cloaks,
climbing our steep hills in the dark winter days.

I had a long consultation with Lady Margaret Cecil, Lady Derby's
daughter--a perfect saint, who spent all her life helping other
people--and she gave me the catalogue of "Price Jones," a well-known
Welsh shop whose "specialite" was all sorts of clothes for country
people, schools, workmen's families, etc. I ordered a large collection
of red cloaks, ulsters, and flannel shirts at a very reasonable price,
and they promised to send them in the late summer, so that we should
find them when we went back to France.

We found two large cases when we got home, and were quite pleased at
all the nice warm cloaks we had in store for the winter.

As soon as the first real cold days began, about the end of November,
the women used to appear at the chateau asking for warm clothes for
the children. The first one to come was the wife of the "garde de
Borny"--a slight, pale woman, the mother of nine small children
(several of them were members of the school at St. Quentin, who had
declined our soup, and I rather had _their_ little pinched, bloodless
faces in my mind when I first thought about it). She had three with
her--a baby in her arms, a boy and a girl of six and seven, both
bare-legged, the boy in an old worn-out jersey pulled over his chest,
the girl in a ragged blue and white apron, a knitted shawl over her
head and shoulders. The baby had a cloak. I don't believe there was
much on underneath, and the mother was literally a bundle of rags, her
skirt so patched one could hardly make out the original colour, and a
wonderful cloak all frayed at the ends and with holes in every
direction. However, they were all clean.

The baby and the boy were soon provided for. The boy was much pleased
with his flannel shirt. Then we produced the red cloak for the girl.
The woman's face fell: "O