"You will be quieter by and by. I said we want the house to be free on Monday next. As we may stay in France for months, and even for years, it is our duty to settle things as well as can be. It is our right. I am sorry this is disagreeable for you, but it is war." When he had done talking, he bowed himself to the ground, his companion immediately did the like, and both withdrew. In a death-like silence we listened to the retreating steps, to the gate slammed-to, and then burst out into lamentations. A fortnight after we were in Laon. The dear old house, the garden, the furniture were all violated, lost. As nothing else kept us in Morny, we had asked leave to go to Laon, which by way of compensation had been granted to us. So, we should not be bound to enforced service, and we could make up for the tediousness of the winter by devouring all the books in the town library. And above all, we should not see plundered, and given over to the beasts, the beloved old house, embellished by our love, where the family had lived for several generations, where my husband and my sisters-in-law had been born, where they had spent their childhood. We should not see the looking-glasses cracked by awkwardness or malice, the hangings splashed with beer, the carpets torn up, the pieces of furniture burnt one after another for firewood, according to the whims of the servants. We should not see the officers walking two by two under our lime-trees, in our long alleys, edged with box--the box, beneath which we hid our Easter eggs! The rumour of our expulsion spread abroad, and presently we heard the reason of it. Jacob, the linguist, the pompous talker, not to say the chatterbox, told the Lantois: "The ladies' troubles are due to an officer's vengeance. Lieutenant Bubenpech had a personal grudge against them; he is the nephew of the brigade-major, and he thought it amusing to give these ladies a little lesson."