The answer of the ravaged region to the murder and the burning is a steadiness of courage, a busy and sane life of normal activity. Beautiful Nancy still lifts her gates of gold in the Place of Stanislaus. The lovely light of France falls softly on the white stone front of the municipal buildings, and from their interior comes a throbbing energy that spreads through the hurt district. The Prefect's houses for refugees are admirably conducted. School "keeps" for the children of Pont-à-Mousson on a quiet country road, while their mothers still live in cellars in the bombarded town, busy with the sewing which has made their home famous. They are embroidering table cloths and napkins, and Americans are buying their work. They are not allowed any longer to be happy, but they can go on creating beauty. None of their trouble need escape into the clean white linen and the delicate needle-work, and the Bridge of Pont-à-Mousson embosses the centerpiece as proudly as if the town had not been pounded by heavy shells for two years. But the parents were agreed on one thing: it was no place for children. So these and other hundreds of little ones have been brought together. The Prefect means that these children, some of whom have seen their homes burned, their mothers hunted by armed men, shall have the evil memory wiped out. He is working that they shall have a better chance than if the long peace had continued. The simple homely things are going on, as if the big guns could not reach in. I attended the classes of domestic science, where little girls plan menus for the family meal. Overhead, the aeroplanes spot the sky. Three times in my days in the district they came and "laid their eggs," in the phrase of the soldiers. Sometimes a mother is killed, sometimes a sister, but the peaceful work goes on. The blackboard is scribbled over with chalk. Piping voices repeat their lesson. I saw the tiny boys at school. I saw the older boys working at trades. Some of them were busy at carpentry, remaking the material for their own village, bureaus, tables and chairs. We talked with boys and girls from Nomeny, where the slaughter fell on women with peculiar severity. These children had seen the Germans come in. Wherever I went I met children who had seen the hand grenades thrown, their homes burning. I visited many hundreds of these children at school. They are orderly and busy. It will take more than fire and murder from unjust men to spoil life for the new generation of France. For that insolence has released a good will in a greater race than the race that sought to offend these little ones.