must come to Paris. You're too near the front here," he
continued, as he piled wife, babies and servant into the taxi.

And so, with hardly time for an adieu, the motor whisked away as it had
come, leaving H. and me looking beyond it into the night.

When I returned to the pantry, I found Nini weeping copiously. Imagining
she had become frightened by the sudden departure of our friends, I was
collecting my wits to console and reassure her, when she burst forth,
"Oh, Madame--Madame--the _pates--_"

"Well?"

"The lovely _pates!_--all burned to cinders! Such a waste!"

In our excitement we had forgotten to take from the oven two handsome
_Pates de lievre_ of which I was more than duly proud. And as Nini
expressed it, they were burned to cinders. How H. chuckled at our first
domestic mishap.

"Fine cooks, you are," said he, turning to Berthe and Nini, who hung
their heads and blushed crimson. "And it's to you that I'm going to
entrust Madame when I leave!"

Tuesday, the fourth, the drum rolled at an early hour and the
_garde-champetre_ announced the declaration of war. It was not news to
anyone, for all had considered the mobilization as the real thing.

We were breakfasting when we heard a strange rumbling up the road. It
was such a funny noise--midway between that of a steam roller and a
threshing machine--that we both went out towards the lodge to see what
was passing by. We were not a little surprised on perceiving our
gendarmes sitting in an antiquated motor, whose puffing and wheezing
betokened its age. They stopped when they saw us, and after exchanging
greetings, laughingly poked fun at their vehicle--far less imposing than
their well-groomed horses, but the only thing that could cover between
seventy and eighty miles a day! From them we learned that the
mobilization was being carried out in perfection, and in all their tours
to outlying villages and hamlets not a single delinquent had been found
--not a single man was missing! All had willingly answered the call to
arms!

Between the excitement and all the work that had to be done at Villiers,
time passed with phenomenal rapidity. As yet we had had no occasion to
perceive the lack of mail and daily papers, and though I had always had
a sub-conscious feeling that H. would eventually receive his marching
orders, it was rather a shock when they came. Being in a frontier
department he was called out earlier than expected. And instead of
being s