zed what all that material meant, and that the Allies were
prepared for even this tragic and Boche-like move. I began to get little
cards and letters back from the 118th on the twenty-third. The first
said simply:

Dear Madame,

Here we are--arrived last night just behind the line,--with our eyes
strained towards the front, ready to bound forward and join in the
pursuit.

Of course I have seen the Americans--a doctor from Schenectady
and forty men, almost all youngsters in their early twenties. In fact
twenty-two seems to be the popular age. There are boys from
Harvard, boys from Yale, New England boys, Virginia boys, boys from
Tennessee, from Kentucky, from Louisiana, and American boys from
Oxford. It is a first-line ambulance corps,--the boys who drive their
little Ford ambulances right down to the battlefields and receive the
wounded from the brancardiers, and who have seen the worst of
Verdun, and endured the privations and the cold with the army.

When a Virginia man told me that he had not taken cold this winter,
and showed me his little tent on the common, where, from choice, he
is still sleeping under canvas, because he "likes it," I could easily
believe him. Do you know,--it is absurd--I have not had a cold this
winter, either? I, who used to have one tonsilitis per winter, two
bronchitis, half a dozen colds in my head, and occasionally a mild
specimen of grip. This is some record when you consider that since
my coal gave out in February we have had some pretty cold weather,
and that I have only had imitation fires, which cheer the imagination
by way of the eyes without warming the atmosphere. I could fill a
book with stories of "how I made fires in war time," but I spare you
because I have more interesting things to tell you.

On the twenty-sixth we were informed that we were to have the 65th
Regiment cantoned on the hill for a day and a night. They were to
move along a bit to make room for the 35th for a few days. It was
going to be pretty close quarters for one night, and the adjutant who
arranged the cantonnement was rather put to it to house his men.
The Captain was to be in my house, and I was asked, if, for two days
--perhaps less--I could have an officers' kitchen in the house and let
them have a place to eat. Well,--there the house was--they were
welcome to it. So that was arranged, and I put a mattress on the floor
in the atelier for the Captain's cook.

We had hardly got that over when the