All the automobiles, as well as everything else, have been confiscated by the invaders and it is a common occurrence to look up and see one's own beautiful car bounding along over cobblestones and breaking with its load of soldiers--the motors are driven so hard that in two weeks' time they are practically worthless. At the beginning of the war, many owners cunningly removed a tiny necessary part of their machines, but in most cases the same owners were given just two hours at the point of the bayonet to find those missing parts, which was not always easy. And the farmers, too, who cut down the big trees across the roads to impede the enemy's advance, had just the same amount of time given them to clear the path again. So you see that one is helpless. Rumors come from France that the fortified town of Mauberge still resists, but that the Germans are at Compiégne, which is so near to beautiful Paris. It is impossible to believe. Yet we all experienced a feeling of absolute faintness when that report came, for Compiégne, or anywhere within one hundred kilometres of it, is too near. But if--_Bon Dieu_, keep us from thinking! _September 8th, Tuesday._ There is a possibility of our going to Brussels. Oh, the joy of it! That may find me the means, through the American Ambassador, of getting back to my beloved France. The youngest gardener, the little one, Charles, who is only eighteen years old, has left for "the front." Not with his regiment, for he hasn't one (this year was to have been his class), but as a private individual who could not stay at home when his country needed him. His old mother, with a little catch in her throat, sent him off proudly, her baby, her _petit Charles_, to serve with his four brothers, already gone. But how can he get away with the eye of the arrogant usurper on every corner and road? A Belgian soldier will play his rôle after his own interpretation. Instead of going off in his best smock and a tiny bundle on a stick, _le petit Charles_ bade us a smiling _au revoir_ in his old blue apron and torn hat. He will wander aimlessly over the hills which he knows so well and, unsuspected, will creep through the friendly hedges into the very arms of hospitable Holland and then, "All's well."