Mrs. Coltman, the mother of six lovely children, was speaking of the impossibilities of clean linen or having any washing done. “But after all,” she said, “what does it matter? If the troops come within ten days, my children can wear what they are wearing; if Peking is not relieved within that time, we will all be dead.” She was not melodramatic, but spoke very quietly. A hundred other remarks of this sort that one hears daily go to show how the people really feel about our condition. Women with husbands and children suffer horribly. They dread lest their children may die of disease or by torture, as certainly would be the case if the Chinese get in—as they are notoriously cruel and without mercy even to babies—and fear for their husbands, who may be killed during any attack. At one o’clock this morning a terrific firing began, apparently coming from all sides at once, which proved to be the case later, when the officers in charge of the defence compared notes. At this Legation the air hummed with bullets, but the noise was so frightful one could not tell if all the Legations were being attacked or just the British. They tried to frighten us, and they certainly succeeded with women, children, and some men, but, thank heavens, the officers in charge of defending us and the sentries—most of them, at least—know that our high walls and strong barricades are our safety, and that, unless good and well-aimed artillery is brought to shell them down, with our soldiers and soldier-sailors to man them, it will be hard for the Chinese to get over the Wall and end our lives. It all seems like a story from the Middle Ages to be able to place such confidence in the strength and manning of our walls. Certainly the foreign-drilled Chinese soldiers must be down at Tien-tsin, and we are owing our present immunity from properly aimed artillery-fire to the fact that the Chinese gunners here are utterly incompetent.