And to my mind, by no means the least of the many hideous sins for which the Germans will ultimately be called to account at the world’s Bar of Justice, will be the violation of the homes, the landmarks, and the ancient birthrights of unoffending peoples, while they themselves sat smug and sanctimonious under their own vines and fig trees, self-complacent in the knowledge that they were protected from deserved retribution by their devil-driven guns. * * * * * When at last we reached the little white gate, leading into the cottage garden, we stood for a moment, as we always do, and looked at the peak beyond peak, and the deep lying valleys. Sloping away from our very feet were our own orchards and coppices, the bright lichen on the twisted old apple trees showing almost a blue-green against the purple of the bare birch tree branches still lower down. The sun was dropping behind the larches that ridged the opposite hills. Birds everywhere were explaining to each other that they must—they really _must_—set about house-hunting the very first thing in the morning. Out in the lane, the mountain spring was over-full and singing a riotous song of jubilation as it tumbled out of the little wooden trough into the pool below, and tore away down into the valley. “It’s a marvellous world,” said Virginia as we gazed at the vast panorama that stretched before us; and then she added, “Do you know, I’ve come to the conclusion that I prefer a spring of water outside the gate to all the stop-cocks and water-mains in the world.” * * * * * Next morning a letter from the Head of Affairs skipped airily over the episode of his meeting with the builder, concentrating on the point that I was to stay where I was, as he would join me in a few days. But Ursula supplied the missing details. “After I saw you off at Paddington,” she wrote, “I hurried back as fast as I could; I felt that I should at least like to see if the four outside walls remained of what was once your happy home. Because, though we didn’t let you know, the builder confided to me, as you were leaving, that he had discovered the whole front of the house was in a most shocking condition, necessitating prompt ‘shoring-up’ (whatever that may mean), and requiring to be underpinned immediately. But by the time I reached the place where your gates ought to have been—but weren’t—I found the Head of Affairs (he’d sent a wire as soon as he landed in England, but it evidently never reached you) bestowing as much gratuitous eloquence on the builder and the Water Company as would have run an election. What did he say? Why, everything that is in the English language, and in a hundred different keys! Sometimes he singled out some separate ‘official,’ and gave it him, personally, in considerable detail.