with vigour, and the old monster gun cruised right round the town and boomed destruction at us from no less than five different points of vantage. When the shelling was very heavy, we used to say to ourselves, "What a good thing they are using up their ammunition!" when again for a few days it was slack, we were convinced our foes had had bad news. What matter if our next information was that the Boers had been seen throwing up their hats and giving vent to other visible expressions of delight: we had passed a few peaceful hours. Many casualties continued to take place; some were fatal and tragic, but many and providential were the escapes recorded. Among the former, one poor man was blown to bits while sitting eating his breakfast; but the same day, when a shell landed in or near a house adjacent to my bomb-proof, it merely took a cage containing a canary with it through the window, while another fragment went into a dwelling across the street, and made mince-meat of a sewing-machine and a new dress on which a young lady had been busily engaged. She had risen from her pleasant occupation but three minutes before. The coolness of the inhabitants, of both sexes, was a source of constant surprise and admiration to me, and women must always be proud to think that the wives and daughters of the garrison were just as conspicuous by their pluck as the defenders themselves. Often of a hot afternoon, when I was sitting in my bomb-proof, from inclination as well as from prudence--for it was a far cooler resort than the stuffy iron-roofed houses--while women and children were walking about quite unconcernedly outside, I used to hear the warning bell ring, followed by so much scuffling, screaming, and giggling, in which were mingled jokes and loud laughter from the men, that it made me smile as I listened; then, after the explosion, they would emerge from any improvised shelter and go gaily on their way, and the clang of the blacksmith's anvil, close at hand, would be resumed almost before the noise had ceased and the dust had subsided. One day a lady was wheeling her two babies in a mail-cart up and down the wide road, while the Boers were busily shelling a distant part of the defences. The children clapped their hands when they heard the peculiar siren and whistle of the quick-firing Krupp shells, followed by dull thuds, as they buried themselves in the ground. On my suggesting to her that it was not a very favourable time to air the children, she agreed, and said that her husband had just told her to go home, which she proceeded leisurely to do. Another morning the cattle near the convent were being energetically shelled, and later I happened to see the Mother Superior, and commiserated with her in having been in such a hot corner. "Ah, shure!" said the plucky Irish lady, "the shells were dhroppin' all round here; but they were only nine-pounders, and we don't take any notice of them at all." No words can describe the cheerful, patient