As we sat at tea together, near the conservatory windows, where we could look through the naked garden trees across a meadow to the forest beyond, the Burgomaster told me of the morning when they stood at these windows, after the shells had been falling for days all about them, waiting and watching, scarcely daring to breathe, and of how as they watched, he saw through the trees of the forest what looked like a brown shadow, but the brown shadow moved, and then running across the meadow, where he had always believed they must break through, came the Belgian soldiers, the soldiers of deliverance. “I know our hearts stopt beating; we stood choking, incapable of motion, as we watched them come—still unable to believe after four years of waiting.” We were silent for a few minutes, then we began to talk of the lace. As his wife turned to get the list of her villages, I asked if the Germans had attempted to get her workers away from her. “They had their agents here, as everywhere,” she answered, “and I regret to admit that one of their most successful ones was a Belgian woman, who had been a facteur, or lace gatherer for larger houses, before the war. When the Germans offered her large prices, she consented to serve them. If she had been sacrificing herself for what she believed to be the good of the workers, we might have forgiven her, but it was obvious that she was not—she is pretty and likes pretty clothes—_Voilà tout!_ Along with several other disloyal citizens, she was imprisoned the other day, but unfortunately after only twenty-four hours, succeeded in freeing herself. However, the people will never forget that she trafficked with the enemy.”