hell wrecks a little more of what was once a home, each crash and
falling of bricks brings a little more pain to a breaking heart. The
ruins of Ypres are glorious and noble, and we are proud to defend them,
but the quiet, simple people of Ypres cannot even find one brick on
another of their homes.

Somewhere in England, they tell me, is a little old lady who was once a
great figure in Brussels society. She is nearly eighty now, and alone,
but she clings on tenaciously to life till the day shall come when she
can go back to her Chateau at Ypres, where she has lived for forty
years. One can picture her--feeble, wizened, and small, her eyes bright
with the determination to live until she has seen her home again.

I, who have seen her Chateau, pray that death may come to close those
bright eyes, so that they may never look upon the destruction of her
home, for it is a desolate sight, even though the sky was blue and the
leaves glistened in the sun on the morning when, two years ago, I
tramped up the winding drive.

The lodge was nothing more than a tumbled pile of broken bricks, but, by
some odd chance, the Chateau itself had never suffered a direct hit. In
front of the big white house there had once been an asphalt tennis
court--there was now a plain pitted at every few yards by huge shell
holes. The summer-house at the edge of the wood--once the scene of
delightful little flirtations in between the games of tennis--was now a
weird wreck, consisting of three tottering walls and a broken seat.
Oddest of all, there lay near the white marble steps an old, tyreless De
Dion motor-car.

I have often wondered what the history of that battered thing could be.
One can almost see the owner packing herself in it with her most
precious belongings, to flee from the oncoming Germans. The engine
refuses to start, there is no time for repairs, there is the hurried
flight on foot, and the car is left to the mercy of the invading troops.
Perhaps, again, it belonged to the staff of some army, and was left at
the Chateau when it had run its last possible mile. At all events, there
it stood, half-way between Ypres and the Germans, with everything of any
possible value stripped off it as thoroughly as though it had been left
to the white ants.

By the side of the tennis court, where had once been flower beds, there
was now a row of little, rough wooden crosses, and here and there the
narcissi and daffodils had sprung up. What a strange lit