Such was the country and such the town in which we were billeted. Now upon a morning in February it happened that I was smoking a cigarette in the little garden, bordered by hedges of box, while waiting for my car, and as I waited I watched Jeanne, with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a clothes-peg in her mouth, busy over the wash-tub. "Vous etes une blanchisseuse, aujourd'hui?" I remarked. She corrected me. "Non, m'sieu', une lessiveuse." "Une lessiveuse?" For answer Jeanne pointed to a linen-bag which was steeping in the tub. The linen-bag contained the ashes of the beech-tree; it is a way of washing that they have in some parts of France, and very cleansing. To specialise thus is _lessiver_. As we talked in this desultory fashion I let fall a word concerning a journey I was about to undertake to the French lines, a journey that would take me over the battlefield of the Marne. "La Marne! Helas, quelle douleur!" said Jeanne, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. "But it was a glorious victory," I expostulated. Yes, but Jeanne, it seemed, had lost a brother in the battle of the Marne. She pulled out of her bosom a frayed letter, bleached, stained, and perforated with holes about the size of a shilling, and handed it to me. I could make nothing of it. She handed me another letter. "Son camarade," she explained, and no longer attempted to hide her tears. And this was what I read: Le 10 sept., 1914. CHERE MADAME--Comme j'etais tres bon camarade avec votre frere Paul Duval et que le malheur vient de lui arriver, je tient a vous le faire savoir, car peut-etre vous serai dans l'inquietude de pas recevoir de ces nouvelles et de ne pas savoir ou il est. Je vous dirai que je vient de lui donner du papier a lettre et une enveloppe pour vous ecrire et aussitot la lettre finit il l'a mis dans son kepi pour vous l'envoye le plus vite possible et malheureusement un obus est arriver, et il a etait tue. Heureusement nous etions trois pres de l'un l'autre et il n'y a eut de lui de touche. Je vous envoi la petite lettre qu'il venait de vous faire, et en meme tant vous verrez les trous que les eclats d'obus l'on attrapper. Recevez de moi chere madame mes sinceres salutations. JULES COPPEE. Tambour au 151e Regiment d'Inf., 2e Cie 42e Division, Secteur postale 56.