There was another occasion when a plot was hatched to duck a disagreeable officer in the artificial lake at the lower end of the grounds. Fortunately the saner heads prevailed and averted any further complications. And "it would have served the creature bally well right, for what right had he anyhow to insist so strongly on his old rules," as one of the hotheads expressed it. It was a trifle irritating at times to have a nurse, in reply to your order to give such and such a patient massage, say that she would do it presently, as she was just going for a short tramp in the grounds. _Mais, que voulez vous?_ as the French say with that delightful shrug. Were they not paying to be there, and should not that fact have given them some rights over those horrid rules of discipline? And we men were the same on occasions, for discipline cannot be had outside of the trained army. But the breaches of discipline were small in comparison to the really excellent work that the hospital was carrying on, so they were overlooked, and, as they occurred only at wide intervals, they but served to give a touch of humor to the life which was monotonous enough at times. The French realized full well the sacrifices that were made daily by these aristocrats who had given up their luxurious homes, their autos, their servants and their money, to live in the servants' quarters of this old château, and to wait hand and foot upon wounded poilus, with at any moment of the day or night the chance of a shell coming through the roof and stirring things up. No praise is too high for the self-sacrificing work of these men and women, all voluntary workers and untrained in this type of labor. The women were members of the V.A.D., Voluntary Aid Detachment, which has been the target at times of coarse jibes and criticisms, spoken by those who do not know whereof they speak. I have worked with members of this corps of women workers in hospitals in England and France, and I know that, taking it all in all, their work is beyond praise, and their nobility of character beyond estimate. This is vouched for by many a lonely, hard-hit common soldier, sick in a strange land, far from his home and his loved ones.