“But for military purposes,” dryly remarked an officer who had not yet spoken, “one needs to be lucky only as long as the war lasts,” which being hideously true, we turned to the less elusive subject of the rich and easy living of the peasants in this part of the world since the war, and how they, even like unto those other tens of thousands of “war-workers,” will “miss” it. They had become accustomed to the troops, and there was the thrice blessed _popote_ in which they more or less shared. And when the Americans came things were still better in a still better world. For they were very free with their money (though no one could understand a word that they said), and then they went, and the French troops came again, and there was something very pleasant about their return. Though they didn’t have the money of the Americans, they could be conversed with and they would lend a hand in the garden, and were always joking with the children, and helped with the crops, and the virtues of the Americans, if not their money, were somewhat forgotten. They were, in places, even remembered as a nuisance, wanting everything cleared up, stupid bores about the dung-heap, “and will you believe it, Monsieur,” one of them said to Laferrière, “they even washed their dishes with _soap_, and you couldn’t give the dishwater to the pigs!” After which I related Colonel Burnside’s “best short story,” also concerning the peasant point of view. When he was in Lorraine with his men, at the well-named watery (not watering) place called Demanges-aux-Eaux, a delegation of villagers waited on him, with the complaint that the Americans made so much noise at night that the _sheep_ couldn’t sleep! And we finished luncheon gaily, to the rather distant sound of German guns, with the story of the wife of a (or probably the) French soap manufacturer in Tonquin who came to the Gallands’ for convalescence after “war-strain.” How she charmed them with her singing, especially of children’s songs, delighted them with the reserve and modesty of her conduct, and after two months turned out to have been once a well-known, café-chantant singer with the proverbial “past and many brilliant presents,” enjoying a glimpse of home-life in Alsace. Coffee was poured by the handsome daughter, who with her firm yet delicate profile, and rich, dark hair drawn heavily back, looked like some model for a head on a bank-note or medallion. Her mother, saying to me, “_Vous êtes femme de cœur_” took me apart and told me her history. And perhaps because so much had been buried in the great war of youthful love and hope, I may record a little of this story; its grief is typical in simplicity and purity of many countless thousands in this land of France.