ly and go down to "Les
Halles," the French Covent Garden, and come back with literally armfuls
of roses of all shades of delicate pink, white, and cream. Tante Rose
(the only name I ever knew her by) was a widow, and the aunt of my
friend. She was one of the _vieille noblesse_ and had a charming house
in Passy, and was as interesting to listen to as a book. She asked me
one day if I would care to go with her to a Memorial Service at the
_Sacre-Coeur_. Looking out of her windows we could see the church
dominating Paris from the heights of Montmartre, the mosque-like
appearance of its architecture gleaming white against the sky.

At that moment the dying rays of the sun lit up the golden cross
surmounting it, and presently the whole building became a delicate rose
pink and seemed almost to float above the city, all blue in the haze of
the evening below. It was wonderful, and a picture I shall always carry
in my mind. I replied I would love to go, and on the following day we
toiled up the dazzling white steps. The service was, I think, the most
impressive I have ever attended. Crowds flocked to it, all or nearly all
in that uniform of deep-mourning incomparably _chic_, incomparably
French, and gaining daily in popularity. Long before the service began
the place was packed to suffocation. Tante Rose looked proudly round and
whispered to me, "Ah, my little one, you see here those who have given
their all for France." Indeed it seemed so on looking round at those
white-faced women; and how I wished that _some_ of the people in
England, who had not been touched by the war, or who at that time (June,
1915) hardly realized there even was one, could have been present.

During another visit to Tante Rose's I heard the following story from an
_infirmiere_. A wounded German was brought to one of the French
hospitals. In the bed adjoining lay a Zouave who had had his leg
amputated. The Boche asked for a drink of hot water, the hottest
obtainable. When the Nurse brought it to him he took the glass, and
without a word threw the scalding contents in her face! The Zouave who
had witnessed this brutal act, with a snarl of rage, leapt from his bed
on to the German's and throttled him to death there and then. The other
_blesses_ sat up in bed and cheered. "It is thus," she continued calmly,
"that our brave soldiers avenge us from these brutes." I looked at her
as she sat there so dainty in her white uniform, quite undismayed by
what had ta