Coming back in the twilight the effect of all this misery was accentuated, the sentinels every few hundred yards were more suspicious than ever and when we came upon a few isolated "_Hussars de la Mort_" with the death's head leering out from those elegant fur turbans, I thought all was finished. Happily the men were more peaceable than their aspect. Spa, the lovely, indolent _ville d'eaux_, which we visited, was filled with the "military" and bristling like a porcupine with saw-edged bayonets and pointed helmets. _September 22nd, Tuesday._ The doctor has gone to Neufchateau in the Ardennes to bring back the French and Belgian wounded. I wish I could have gone with him, for we seem so useless here now that our soldiers are well, and the days are long, since the wild excitement of a giant army on the wing has cooled down. "On the wing" is not an idle expression when we remember those forced marches and how they lashed the poor artillery horses which galloped and strained in the traces without making much impression on the wheels. It was rather like that famous chariot race in the play, "Ben Hur," when the landscape rolled around too fast for the horses. Certain Imperial Esprits have doubtless already arrived, but without the baggage--an item somewhat important. May the Fates preserve beautiful Paris! There is a dear little French sister at the Convent (this Sisterhood was transferred from Metz after the War of 1870) who says that we must pray the Blessed Virgin every day to "_écraser_ (smash) _les Allemands_," and she says it so fervently that one does not observe the lack of Christian spirit. Very little is passing through the city at present except perhaps this eternal line of trains, and oh, how we are thirsting for news! Can you imagine, dear people at home, you who have hundreds of newspapers, how we are straining every nerve to know the real truth of things as they are, to pierce through this thick wall, with which an arrogant despotism has cut us off from the whole world? But we cannot. It is wadded on both sides with deceptions and our only privilege is to surmise. What poor things we are, in truth, though born and reared in the common independence of the age. Everywhere (else) the poorest farmer has his one old horse to take him to and fro, where he will, and he has his acre of God's country, where he may muse in the sun or dream with the stars, while we, conquered by numbers, must walk in a straight line without loitering and we must go into our houses at seven P. M. and close the door. Do you think that is amusing? _September 24th, Thursday._ We heard five booms of cannon in an hour this morning and bad and inhuman as it sounds, we were quite pleased--any little sign from an outside world that one lives, one breathes, to drag us out of this inertia, this eternal silence! _September 28th, Monday._