ter eleven, while the chef-major was upstairs writing,
that his orderly came with a paper and carried it up to him. He came
down at once, made me one of his pretty bows at the door of the library,
and holding out a scrap of paper said:--

"Well, madame, we are going to leave you. We advance at two."

I asked him where he was going.

He glanced at the paper in his hand, and replied:--

"Our orders are to advance to Saint-Fiacre,--a little east of Meaux,--
but before I go I am happy to relieve your mind on two points. The
French cavalry has driven the Uhlans out--some of them were captured as
far east as Bouleurs. And the English artillery has come down from the
hill behind you and is crossing the Marne. We follow them. So you see
you can sit here in your pretty library and read all these nice books in
security, until the day comes--perhaps sooner than you dare hope--when
you can look back to all these days, and perhaps be a little proud to
have had a small part in it." And off he went upstairs.

I sat perfectly still for a long time. Was it possible that it was only
a week ago that I had heard the drum beat for the disarming of the Seine
et Marne? Was there really going to come a day when all the beauty
around me would not be a mockery? All at once it occurred to me that I
had promised Captain Simpson to write and tell him how I had "come
through." Perhaps this was the time. I went to the foot of the stairs
and called up to the chef-major. He came to the door and I explained,
asking him if, we being without a post-office, he could get a letter
through, and what kind of a letter I could write, as I knew the
censorship was severe.

"My dear lady," he replied, "go and write your letter,--write anything
you like,--and when I come down I will take charge of it and guarantee
that it shall go through, uncensored, no matter what it contains."

So I wrote to tell Captain Simpson that all was well at Huiry,--that we
had escaped, and were still grateful for all the trouble he had taken.
When the officer came down I gave it to him, unsealed.

"Seal it, seal it," he said, and when I had done so, he wrote, "Read and
approved" on the envelope, and gave it to his orderly, and was ready to
say "Good-bye."

"Don't look so serious about it," he laughed, as we shook hands. "Some
of us will get killed, but what of that? I wanted this war. I prayed
for it. I should have been sad enough if I had died before it came. I
hav