And then we looked out of the window, and there came into my mind a completely commonplace event that caught my attention in the first wonderment and horror of the world war. Accompanied by her daughter, an elderly woman, one August evening of 1914, took the Fifth Avenue motor-bus to get some fresh air, and they placed themselves on top. At that epoch, instead of going straight up the Avenue, which was being repaved around about Thirty-fifth Street, the omnibus took a turn into Madison Avenue and reappeared again at the north side of Altman’s. Now the roof of the _porte-cochère_ of Altman’s has a _motif_ of bronzework. The omnibus lurched just at this point; the head and hair of the old lady were caught in it; she was lifted up from the top of the omnibus, remained suspended in air for an instant of time, then dropped to the pavement, where she breathed out her soul. Doubtless there are those who will understand why this completely unimportant matter has remained in my mind—even why I thought of it at that moment. CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, 36 RUE DU PORT DE MARNE. An 1860 house requisitioned by the military authorities for the _Dames de la Cantine_. _6.30 p.m._ Sitting in a little glass-inclosed veranda even with the ground. The side against the house, in between the doors and windows, is painted in a crisscross pattern of dark green against light green, and the woodwork is that favorite but uninspiring shallow brown; a large, empty, double-decker cage for birds is in a corner. The veranda leads into two low-ceilinged rooms with parquet flooring and little squares of Brussels carpet. In the first is a writing-table, some arm-chairs, and a horsehair sofa is across a corner; brown wallpaper ornamented with the inevitable oil-paintings of “near” Corots, and “farther” Guido Renis—everything distinctly early Victorian, and something soothing in its atmosphere after three lustrums of _art nouveau_. After all we’ve been through in art lately, early Victorian isn’t as bad as we once thought. I looked for a moment into the walnut bookcase and found bound volumes of _La Semaine des Familles_, 1850-60; _Le Musée des Familles_ of the same dates: _Le Magasin d’Education_, of the eighties; and the curious part is that here beside the Marne it doesn’t seem of any special country, but of a special period. The kitchen leads out of the dining-room (which latter is the spiritual twin of the _salon_), and has an old, unused fireplace with a high masonried shelf above it and a beautiful ancient fireback with coat of arms. Near the high window is a little range and the inevitable gas-stove. I put my valise in the sitting-room and went out into the old garden, untouched since the winter’s sleep and the spring’s awakening. It looks out on the road; beyond is a raised walk along the river, and across the stream, just opposite, is the station and the evacuation hospital.