s house, a final stop at
"The Elephant" on the quay to get the evening papers, and then passing
through Essommes with its delightful old church, Bonneil and Romery,
our joyful party would reach Villiers just in time for dinner.

A certain mystery shrouded the locality where our home was situated.
Normandy, Brittany, the Chateaux of Touraine, the climate of the
Riviera, have, at various seasons been more attractive, not only to
foreigners, but to the Parisians themselves, so aside from the art
lovers who made special trips to Rheims, there was comparatively little
pleasure travelling in our immediate neighbourhood, and yet what
particular portion of France is more historically renowned? Is it not
on those same fertile fields so newly consecrated with our blood that
every struggle for world supremacy has been fought?

It would be difficult to explain just why this neglect of the lovely
East; neglect which afforded us the privilege of guiding our friends,
not only along celebrated highways, but through leafy by-paths that
breathed the very poetry of the XVIIth. century, and stretched,
practically untrodden, through Lucy-le-Bocage, Montreuil-aux-Lions,
down to the Marne and La Ferte-sous-Jouarre.

It was wonderful rolling country that rippled back from the river;
abounding not only in vegetation, but in silvery green harmonies so
beloved of the Barbizon master, and sympathetic even by the names of
the tiny hamlets which dotted its vine-covered hills.

Our nearest dealer in agricultural machines lived in a place called
Gaudelu. We called him "MacCormick" because of his absolute and
loquacious partiality for those American machines, and to reach his
establishment we used to pass through delightful places called le Grand
Cormont, Neuilly-la-Poterie, Villers-le-Vaste.

As I write these lines (July, 1918) the station at Chateau-Thierry is
all of that city that remains in our hands. The bridge head has become
the most disputed spot on the map of Europe; "The Elephant" a heap of
waste in No Man's Land, while doubtless from the very place where Corot
painted his masterpiece, a German machine gun dominating the city is
belching forth its ghastly rain of steel.

That very country whose obscurity was our pride is an open hook for
thousands of eager allies and enemies, while on the lips of every wife
and mother, from Maine to California, Belleau Woods have become words
full of fearful portent. I often wonder then, if the brav