At two o'clock in the morning the whole family was aroused by a thundering rap from the butt of a gun on the big front entrance. The poor old butler, who has been in service thirty-five years, was aghast to open the door and find the Burgomaster, in white kid gloves, standing between two Prussian soldiers, with fixed bayonets. They demanded Monsieur J. (for the second time) as hostage. What could have happened among the people, we could only guess. Had they been rash enough to protest against strength and did they want to share the fate of the pitiful Visé? The forenoon brought us no news; after lunch we walked in the broiling sun to the little railroad station at Kinklepois, to see Monsieur J. (he had aged ten years over night) where he was under guard with several others, including _Monsieur le Vicaire_ of A. and _Monsieur l'Abbé_ of K. We sat around the table in the Concierge's tiny dining room and listened to some amusing anecdotes told by the Vicar, while the gentle old Abbot sent out to the vicarage for a bottle of his good old Burgundy. To be sure, no one was much in the mood to be amused, but it lessened the tension of the moment; the least unusual sound from the street--and it was full of soldiers and horses--brought the tale to a sudden end and we listened with blanched faces for perhaps--the worst. _August 31st, Monday._ Monsieur J. was released as hostage at seven o'clock P. M. and returned to the fold. This evening, as all was still, we played a little game of Bridge, as in the old days when life was a pleasant dream. Suddenly a dozen rifle shots, in quick succession, rang out in the air and the cards fell from our nerveless fingers as a stray ball rattled against the iron shutters of our windows. Instinctively we crouched into sheltered corners and waited; another volley and another followed, until finally Monsieur S. whispered in a hoarse voice, "À la cave." The household, including the servants, delighted to be any place where we were not, made a lightning dash, Indian file, for the cellar. Quite unperturbed and loath to leave her cozy, warm kitchen, the old, fat cook was the last to waddle down the stairs, repeating her usual "They cannot hurt me. I am Dutch." She was the calmest of us all, for those intermittent shots and the possibility of retrieving lost balls had raised a tremor of excitement as well as our hasty descent into the realms of Bacchus, in common words--the wine cellar. By the thin rays of a candle the scene was comic; there we were, fourteen of us huddled together in a twelve by twenty foot vault, earthen floor and stone walls. Expecting at any moment an onslaught of we did not know what, each one was bracing himself for the blow, in different attitudes of mind and body. Madame X. was pale, her daughter stolid and ready for the defensive--the true, fighting blood of the Belgians on fire: the old butler, attentive to the slightest sound, was shaking his gray head with