ooking kind of creature, probably the
porter's wife--entered, followed by two other women, the last two
wearing the same cut of prim black waist and skirt, and the same pattern
of white wristlets and collar. We then carried the two soldiers upstairs
to a back room, where the old servant had filled a kind of enamel
dishpan with soapy water. Very gently and deftly the beefy old porter
and his wife took off the fouled, blood-stained uniforms of the two
fighting men, and washed their bodies, while she who had opened the door
stood by and superintended all. The feverish, bright-eyed fellow seemed
to be getting weaker, but the big peasant conversed with the old woman
in a low, steady tone, and told her that there had been a big action.

When Oiler and I came downstairs, two little glasses of sherry and a
plate of biscuits were hospitably waiting for us. There was something
distinctly English in the atmosphere of the room and in the demeanor of
the two prim ladies who stood by. It roused my curiosity. Finally one of
them said:--

"Are you English, gentlemen?"

"No," we replied; "Americans."

"I thought you might be English," she replied in that language, which
she spoke very clearly and fluently. "Both of us have been many years in
England. We are French Protestant deaconesses, and this is our home. It
is not a hospital. But when the call for more accommodations for the
wounded came in, we got ready our two best rooms. The soldiers upstairs
are our first visitors."

The old porter came uneasily down the stair. "Mademoiselle Pierre says
that the doctor must come at once," he murmured, "the little fellow (le
petit) is not doing well."

We thanked the ladies gratefully for the refreshment, for we were cold
and soaked to the skin. Then we went out again to the ambulance and the
rain. A faint pallor of dawn was just beginning. Later in the morning, I
saw a copy of the "Matin" attached to a kiosk; it said something about
"Grande Victoire."

Thus did the great offensive in Champagne come to the city of Paris,
bringing twenty thousand men a day to the station of La Chapelle. For
three days and nights the Americans and all the other ambulance squads
drove continuously. It was a terrible phase of the conflict to see, but
he who neither sees nor understands it cannot realize the soul of the
war. Later, at the trenches, I saw phases of the war that were
spiritual, heroic, and close to the divine, but this phase was, in its
essenc