I am told that Penchard is a fair example of what the Germans did in all these small towns which lay in the line of their hurried retreat. It is not worth while for me to go into detail regarding such disgusting acts. Your imagination, at its most active, cannot do any wrong to the race which in this war seems determined to offend where it cannot terrorize. It is wonderfully characteristic of the French that they have accepted this feature of their disaster as they have accepted the rest--with courage, and that they have at once gone to work to remove all the German "hall-marks" as quickly as possible--and now have gone back to their fields in the same spirit. It was not until yesterday that I unpacked my little hat-trunk and carefully put its contents back into place. It has stood all these days under the stairs in the salon--hat, cape, and gloves on it, and shoes beside it, just as I packed it. I had an odd sensation while I was emptying it. I don't know why I put it off so long. Perhaps I dreaded to find, locked in it, a too vivid recollection of the day I closed it. It may be that I was afraid that, with the perversity of inanimate things, it had the laugh on me. I don't believe I put it off from fear of having to repack it, for, so far as I can know myself, I cannot find in my mind any signs, even, of a dread that what had happened once could happen again. But I don't know. I wish I had more newsy things to write you. But nothing is happening here, you see. IlI October 2, 1914 Well, Amélie came back yesterday, and I can tell you it was a busy day. I assure you that I was glad to see her about the house again. I liked doing the work well enough,--for a little while. But I had quite all I wanted of it before the fortnight was over. I felt like "giving praise" when I saw her coming into the garden, looking just as good as new, and, my word for it, she made things hum yesterday. The first thing she did, after the house was in order, and lunch out of the way, was to open up the cave in which she had stored her household treasures a month ago, and I passed a rare afternoon. I spent a good part of it getting behind something to conceal my silent laughter. If you had been here you would have enjoyed it--and her. I knew something was as it should not be when I saw her pushing the little wheelbarrow on which were all my waste-baskets--I have needed them. But when I got them back, it about finished my attempts at sobriety. I told her to put them on the dining-room table and I would unpack them and put the contents in place. But before that was done, I had to listen to her "tale of woe."