back home. Then you'll know whether war has touched Brittany or not."

We entered with reverent hearts the next ancient cathedral of Brittany,
in a little town with a population of only about two thousand, we were
told, and yet out of this town close to five hundred boys had been
killed in the Great War. Their names were posted, written with many a
flourish by some village penman. In the list I saw the names of four
brothers who had been killed, and their father. The entire family had
been wiped out, all but the women.

So I was mistaken. As quiet and peaceful as Brittany was during May
and June, as beautiful with broom and poppies as were its fields, it
had not gone untouched by the cruel hand of war. It, too, had
suffered, as has every hamlet, village, and corner of fair France;
suffered grievously.

Thus I was not surprised to hear that this beautiful young woman was
wearing black because her husband had been killed, and that the little
girl behind her in the doorway had no longer any hope that her soldier
daddy would some day come home and romp with her as of old. At the
lunch we were told all about it. True, there were tears shed in the
telling, and these not alone by these brave Frenchwomen and the little
girl, but it was a sweet, simple story of courage. Several times
during its telling the little girl ran over to kiss the tears out of
her mother's eyes, and to say, with such faith that it thrilled us:
"Never mind, mother, the Americains are here now; they will kill the
cruel Boches."

After dinner we walked amid the red poppies in the great lawn that was
the crowning feature of that white-stone home. On the walls of the
ancient house grew the most wonderful roses that I have ever seen
anywhere, not excepting California. Great white roses, so large and
fragrant that they seemed unreal, delicately moulded red roses, which
unfolded like a baby's lips, climbed those ancient stone walls. The
younger woman cared for them herself, and was engaged in that task of
love even before we went away.

I said to her, in what French I could command: "They are the most
beautiful roses I have ever seen."

"Even in your own beautiful America?" she asked with a smile.

"Yes, more beautiful even than in my own America."

"Yes," she said, "they are most beautiful, but they are more than that;
they are full of hope for me. They are my promise that I shall see him
some time again. They come back each spring. He l