I was concerned with the fate of the “pretty girl of Lille” that exquisite wax bust attributed by some to Leonardo da Vinci; and when I made Lille my headquarters for a few days I at once made inquiries. The gallery was closed, but there had just been received many boxes of pictures which the Germans were carrying off when stopped on their retreat. The authorities were not adverse to having an accredited journalist see with his own eyes what had happened, and I was permitted to visit the gallery. The boxes were there standing against the wall, still unopened, and on each was clearly printed the name of the picture and of the German museum to which it had been assigned—beautiful evidence of the amazing efficiency with which the Germans had conducted their looting. “Why, there,” I said as I went about, “there is the ‘pretty girl of Lille’!” The curator winked at me. “Do you think so?” he said. “That is what the German Emperor thought when he went through the museum. It is a replica. The pretty girl is in a safe place and she will stay there until I am sure they won’t come back.” (“They” was the term I heard almost universally applied to the Germans in the devastated regions.) Everywhere was the same joy over the safety and the return of their _belles choses_. I think I have never been in a group where gratitude mingled with sorrow was stronger than when my friend Auguste Jaccaci, who had been in Paris throughout the War at the head of the beautiful work for Belgian and French children lost or orphaned by the War, asked me to go with him to the opening of a room in the Louvre, closed of course through the dark period. It was one of the smaller galleries, but in it had been gathered new possessions, things bought in the War, others left by wills, a collection of choicest pieces. They were welcomed by the leading connoisseurs of the city: the directors of the Louvre and the Luxembourg, a few artists, a few great ladies. Everybody was in black and went about with unsmiling but touching appreciation, hardly believing, it seemed to me, that again he or she was free to rejoice in beauty. It was like coming home after the long funeral of a beloved member of a family. But I was more concerned with the everyday conditions under which humble people were living, particularly in the territory so lately occupied. That was where the Red Cross could now be of the most practical help, it seemed to me. It took but little looking about to see that nothing we could provide would come amiss, either to those who had been caught and so remained through the War or to those who were now coming back, generally under the protest of the authorities.