d the empty spots where portraits used to hang.

The township had served as target to the German guns for many a long
month, and was seriously _amoche_, as the saying goes. "Coal scuttles"
by the hundred had ripped the tiles from almost every roof. Huge
breaches gaped in other buildings, while some of them were completely
levelled to the ground. Yet, in spite of all, moss, weeds and vines
had sprung up mid the ruins, adding, if possible, the picturesque to
this scene of desolation. One robust morning glory I noted had climbed
along a wall right into the soot of a tumble-down chimney, and its
fairylike blossoms lovingly entwined the iron bars whereon had hung and
been smoked many a succulent ham.

The territorials (men belonging to the older army classes), had
installed their mess kitchens in every convenient corner: some in the
open court-yards and others beneath rickety stables and sheds, where
the sunlight piercing the gloom caught the dust in its rays and made it
seem like streams of golden powder, whose brightness enveloped even the
most sordid nooks and spread cheer throughout the dingy atmosphere.

Fatigue squads moved up and down the road, seeking or returning with
supplies, while those who were on duty, pick and shovel in hand, moved
off to their work in a casual, leisurely manner one would hardly term
military.

Of civilians there remained but few. Yet civilians there were, and of
the most determined nature: "hangers-on" who when met in this vicinity
seemed almost like last specimens of an extinct race, sole survivors of
the world shipwreck.

At the moment of our arrival an old peasant woman was in the very act
of scolding the soldiers, who to the number of two hundred and fifty (a
whole company) filled to overflowing her modest lodgings, where it
seemed to me half as many would have been a tight squeeze. It was
naturally impossible for her to have an eye on all of them. In her
distress she took me as witness to her trials.

"Just see," she vociferated, "they trot through my house with their
muddy boots, they burn my wood, they're drying up my well, and on top
of it all they persist in smoking in my hay-loft, and the hay for next
Winter is in! Shouldn't you think their Officers would look after
them? Why, I have to be a regular watch-dog, I do!"

"That's all very well, mother," volunteered a little dried up Corporal.
"But how about _their_ incendiary shells? You'll get one of them
sooner or la