She was still there at twenty-seven, on the day in August, 1914, when she opened the paper and saw that Belgium had been invaded by the Germans. She read with attention what was printed about the treaty obligation involved, although she found it hard to understand. At noon she stopped before the desk of Mr. Pennypacker, the senior member of the firm, for whom she had a great respect, and asked him if she had made out correctly the import of the editorial. “_Had_ the Germans promised they wouldn’t ever go into Belgium in war?” “Looks that way,” said Mr. Pennypacker, nodding, and searching for a lost paper. The moment after, he had forgotten the question and the questioner. Ellen had always rather regretted not having been able to “go on with her education,” and this gave her certain little habits of mind which differentiated her somewhat from the other stenographers and typewriters in the office with her, and from her cousin, with whom she shared the small bedroom in Mrs. Wilson’s boarding-house. For instance, she looked up words in the dictionary when she did not understand them, and she had kept all her old schoolbooks on the shelf of the boarding-house bedroom. Finding that she had only a dim recollection of where Belgium was, she took down her old geography and located it. This was in the wait for lunch, which meal was always late at Mrs. Wilson’s. The relation between the size of the little country and the bulk of Germany made an impression on her. “My! it looks as though they could just make one mouthful of it,” she remarked. “It’s _awfully_ little.” “Who?” asked Maggie. “What?” “Belgium and Germany.” Maggie was blank for a moment. Then she remembered. “Oh, the war. Yes, I know. Mr. Wentworth’s fine sermon was about it yesterday. War is the wickedest thing in the world. Anything is better than to go killing each other. They ought to settle it by arbitration. Mr. Wentworth said so.” “They oughtn’t to have done it if they’d promised not to,” said Ellen. The bell rang for the belated lunch and she went down to the dining-room even more serious than was her habit. She read the paper very closely for the next few days, and one morning surprised Maggie by the loudness of her exclamation as she glanced at the headlines. “What’s the matter?” asked her cousin. “Have they found the man who killed that old woman?” She herself was deeply interested in a murder case in Chicago. Ellen did not hear her. “Well, thank _goodness!_” she exclaimed. “England is going to help France and Belgium!”