ing village. He had
passed through a hundred such. Low whitewashed houses, interspersed
with perky balconied buildings given over to little shops on the
ground floor, with here and there a discreet iron gate shutting off
the doctor's or the attorney's villa, and bearing the oval plate
indicating the name and pursuit of the tenant; here and there, too,
long whitewashed walls enclosing a dairy or a timber-yard stretched on
each side of the great high road, and the village gradually dwindled
away at each end into the gently undulating country. There were just a
by-lane or two, one leading up to the little grey church and
presbytery and another to the little cemetery with its trim paths and
black and white wooden crosses and wirework pious offerings. At open
doors the British soldiers lounged at ease, and in the dim interiors
behind them the forms of the women of the house, blue-aproned, moved
to and fro. The early afternoon was warm, a westerly breeze deadened
the sound of the distant bombardment to an unheeded drone, and a holy
peace settled over the place.

Doggie, clean, refreshed, comfortably drowsy, having explored the
village, returned to his billet, and looking at it from the opposite
side of the way, for the first time realized its nature. The lane,
into which he had stumbled the night before, ran under an archway
supporting some kind of overhead chamber, and separated the
dwelling-house from a warehouse wall on which vast letters proclaimed
the fact that Veuve Morin et Fils carried on therein the business of
hay and corn dealers. Hence, Doggie reflected, the fresh, deep straw
on which he and his fortunate comrades had wallowed. The double gate
under the archway was held back by iron stanchions. The two-storied
house looked fairly large and comfortable. The front door stood wide
open, giving the view of a neat, stiff little hall or living-room. An
article of furniture caught his idle eye. He crossed the road in order
to have a nearer view. It was a huge polished mahogany cask standing
about three feet high and bound with shining brass bands, such as he
remembered having seen once in Brittany. He advanced still closer, and
suddenly the slim, dark girl appeared and stood in the doorway, and
looked frankly and somewhat rebukingly into his inquisitive eyes.
Doggie flushed as one caught in an unmannerly act. A crying fault of
the British Army is that it prescribes for the rank and file no form
of polite recognition of