I will seize upon the occasion to give a short description of our dear old house. Notched like a saw, the gabled front presents a row of shutters, which, like grey eyelids, secure us from indiscreet looks. To the right and the left two large iron gates, always carefully closed, lead one into a paved yard, the other into a narrow road, planted with trees. The side of the house, looking out on the high-walled garden, throws off the reserve in which the front is shrouded; windows and doors are always wide open to the air, the sun, and the creepers, whose branches penetrate even the rooms themselves. Inside, a passage separates the house into two parts, the dining- and the drawing-rooms on one side, and on the other the bedrooms and the kitchen. Geneviève, Colette, and Mme. Valaine have their rooms downstairs. Upstairs the attic has been cut up pleasantly into three. Outside, parallel with the house, a small building opens into the yard, containing a wash-house, a room--the small room--a coach-house, a stable, and the whole is topped by an attic. The house--this does not allow of discussion--is too small, or the family is too large, and Antoinette, who wanted a room to herself, declared: "I will settle in 'the small room,'" and we could not get it out of her head, although we enlarged,--with some complacency--upon the dangers she might run alone by night. "The walls are high, the doors strong. I am not afraid, and then there are the dogs." Indeed, Gracieuse and Percinet, the collies we dote on, live next door, and have sharp sets of teeth which they show to all intruders. "Grandmamma," said Antoinette the next morning, "last night, about twelve...." "The proper time for crimes." "I was startled out of my sleep." "You were dreaming of the Germans." "No, no. Some one was in the attic above my room." "There you are! A spy! Have you run him in?" "Without joking, Grandmamma. I heard steps quite clearly." "Do you know that deserters are said to have escaped near Morny?" In process of time the deserters were proved to be dormice, but we thought the mistake amusing, and ever after called the attic "the deserter's attic." Life went on. Dull, spiritless, insignificant in Morny; immense, tremendous, and tragical beyond there in the North and the East. We longed for the postman the whole day long. He had few letters for us, but he still brought papers. We read them carefully, and we were none the wiser. We ought to have read between the lines, but we could not. I assure you that, during the end of August, we were deaf and blind. Our reason refused to believe the testimony of our senses. We saw thousands and thousands of people whom Belgium and the North had cast away, the Belgian army driven back from Flanders, the staff officers settle in Laon, and we never came to the right conclusion.