so, and remain empty-handed when they depart? You
see, it isn't the little fellows who'll suffer. A big place like this
with all its rooms and its stables is just the spot for a camp!"

That idea had never dawned upon us, and we set to thinking where we
could securely hide our groceries in three different places. Finally it
was agreed that one part should be put back of the piles of sheets in
the linen closet; the second part hidden on the top shelf of a very high
cupboard in my dressing-room with toilet articles grouped in front of
it; while the third was carried up a tiny flight of stairs to the attic
and there pushed through a small opening into the dark space that leads
to the beams and rafters. It was all so infantile that we clapped our
hands and were as happy as kings when we had discovered such a good
cachette.

Night was coming on as I stood pouring the last of the plum jam into the
glasses lined up along the kitchen table. Berthe had counted nearly a
hundred, and I was seriously thinking of adopting jam-making as a
profession, when with much noise and trumpeting, a closed auto whisked
up the avenue and stopped before the entrance. I hurried to the kitchen
door, untying my apron as I ran, arriving just as an officer jumped from
the motor, and before I had time to recognize him in his new uniform,
Captain Gauthier rushed forward, exclaiming:

"I've come to fetch Elizabeth and the children!"

The others, too, had heard the motor, and in an instant there was quite
an assembly in the courtyard.

"I had great difficulty leaving Paris at all. My passport is only good
until midnight," the captain was explaining as his wife and H. appeared,
and almost without time for greeting. "Make haste," he continued,
turning to Madame Gauthier. "We must be off in a quarter of an hour, or
our machine will never reach town on time."

I hurried with Elizabeth to her apartment, where we woke and dressed two
very astonished children, while the little maid literally threw the
toilet necessities and a few clothes into a huge Gladstone bag.

"Leon evidently doesn't think us safe down here! You'd better come,
too," murmured Elizabeth as we went downstairs.

In the meantime, H. had questioned our friend as to what had transpired
in Paris within the last twenty-four hours.

"England will probably join us--and there is every possibility of
Italy's remaining neutral," he announced, as we made our appearance. And
then--"You