"Colonel Snow's division, clearing the
way for the advance. You've a whole corps of fresh French troops coming
out from Paris on one side of you, and the English troops are on their
way to Meaux."

"But the bridges are down," I said.

"The pontoons are across. Everything is ready for the advance. I think
we've got 'em." And he laughed as if it were all a game of cricket.

By this time we were in the road. I sent Amelie on for the milk. He
wheeled his machine up the hill beside me. He asked me if there was
anything they could do for me before they moved on. I told him there
was nothing unless he could drive out the Uhlans who were hidden near
us.

He looked a little surprised, asked a few questions--how long they had
been there? where they were? how many? and if I had seen them? and I
explained.

"Well," he said, "I'll speak to the colonel about it. Don't you worry.
If he has time he may get over to see you, but we are moving pretty
fast."

By this time we were at the gate. He stood leaning on his wheel a
moment, looking over the hedge.

"Live here with your daughter?" he asked.

I told him that I lived here alone with myself.

"Wasn't that your daughter I met?"

I didn't quite fall through the gate backwards. I am accustomed to
saying that I am old. I am not yet accustomed to have people notice it
when I do not call their attention to it. Amelie is only ten years
younger than I am, but she has got the figure and bearing of a girl.
The lad recovered himself at once, and said, "Why, of course not,--she
doesn't speak any English." I was glad that he didn't even apologize,
for I expect that I look fully a hundred and something. So with a
reiterated "Don't worry--you are all safe here now," he mounted his
wheel and rode up the hills.

I watched him making good time across to the route to Meaux. Then I came
into the house and lay down. I suddenly felt horribly weak. My house
had taken on a queer look to me. I suppose I had been, in a sort of
subconscious way, sure that it was doomed. As I lay on the couch in the
salon and looked round the room, it suddenly appeared to me like a thing
I had loved and lost and recovered--resurrected, in fact; a living thing
to which a miracle had happened. I even found myself asking, in my
innermost soul, what I had done to deserve this fortune. How had it
happened, and why, that I had come to perch on this hillside, just to
see a battle, and have it come alm