when
we're alone, we'll see exactly what it is we've got."

But at the table there was a great surprise for them. Their uncle
(though they both called him uncle the relationship was not really so
close) was not in his accustomed seat, and Madame de Frenard's eyes
were suspiciously red. She had been crying.

"Uncle Henri may not be back for two or three days," she said, gravely.
"He is a member of parliament, as you know, and he has been called to
Brussels on account--on account of what we all hope may not come."

"War?" asked Arthur, in a hushed voice.

"It looks terribly as if war must come," she said. "And if it does, I
am afraid our poor Belgium must suffer as well as the lands that are
really concerned. We have done nothing; we want nothing except to be
left alone. If they will only do that! But I am afraid we must not
hope for that. Your uncle expects to join the army at once if there is
an invasion."

"Then we'll stay here and look after you," proposed Arthur, promptly.
"Won't we, Paul?"

"For as long as we are needed," Paul said, gravely.

It was easy enough for them to cut their dinner short that night. The
house was uneasy, stirring with a strange foreboding of what was to
come. Servants, everyone, indeed, seemed to look always toward the
east. There were the Germans. Often during the summer they drove to
Aix-la-Chapelle, the first city over the German border--Aachen, as the
Germans called it. Paul remembered, with a smile, as he thought of the
German city, how indignant he had been when he had first discovered
that the Germans invariably spoke of Liege as Luttich, and how he had
been appeased when he was told that he and most people outside of
Germany refused to adopt the German name for Aix-la-Chapelle.

No one in the house, least of all their aunt, had time that night to
think of the two boys. As a matter of fact, it was that now famous
Saturday upon which Germany finally cast the die by declaring war upon
Russia in the interest of her Austrian ally, whose quarrel with Servia
she thus made her own. France, as the ally of Russia, was bound to
fight Germany. Belgium lay between the two huge powers on either side
of her, well-nigh certain to be caught in the disaster that war meant.
But the news that war had actually been declared had not yet come.
Madame de Frenard was waiting with the utmost anxiety for a telephone
message from her husband in Brussels, who had promised to send her word