In Flanders we used to see companies of spies led out to be shot--first a party of soldiers, then the spies, after them the burying-party, and then the firing-party--marching stolidly to some place of execution. How awful shell-fire must be for those who really can't stand it! I heard of a Colonel the other day--a man who rode to hounds, and seemed quite a sound sort of fellow--and when the first shell came over, he leapt from his horse and lay on the ground shrieking with fear, and with every shell that came over he yelled and screamed. He had to be sent home, of course. Some people say this sort of thing is purely physical. That is never my view of the matter. [Page Heading: MISS CAVELL] Miss Cavell's execution has stirred us all to the bottom of our hearts. The mean trickiness of her trial, the refusal to let facts be known, and then the cold-blooded murder of a brave English woman at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning in a prison yard! It is too awful to think about. She was not even technically a spy, but had merely assisted some soldiers to get away because she thought they were going to be shot. A rumour reached the American and Spanish Legations that she had been condemned and was to be shot at once, and they instantly rang up on the telephone to know if this was true. They were informed by the Military Court which had tried and condemned her that the verdict would not be pronounced till three days later. But the two Legations, still not satisfied, protested that they must be allowed to visit the prisoner. This was refused. The English chaplain was at last permitted to enter the prison, and he saw Miss Cavell, and gave her the Sacrament. She said she was happy to die for her country. They led her out into the prison yard to stand before a firing-party of soldiers, but on her way there she fainted, and an officer took out his revolver and shot her through the head. * * * * * Petrograd! the stage of romance, and the subject of dazzling pictures, is one of the most commonplace towns I have ever been in. It has its one big street--the Nevski Prospect--where people walk and shop as they do in Oxford Street, and it has a few cathedrals and churches, which are not very wonderful. The roadways are a mass of slush and are seldom swept; and there are tramways, always crowded and hot, and many rickety little victorias with damp cushions, in which one goes everywhere. Even in the evening we go out in these; and the colds in the head which follow are chronic. The English colony seems to me as provincial as the rest of Petrograd. The town and its people disappoint me greatly. The Hotel Astoria is a would-be fashionable place, and there is a queer crowd of people listening to the band and eating, as surely only in Russia they can eat. It is all wrong in war-time, and I hate being one of the people here.