Brussels is herself again. The delirious excitement which during the first days of mobilisation displayed itself in acts of frenzy has subsided. The inhabitants have adjusted themselves to the wearisome suspense and unpleasant surprises of a state of war. Shops that were shuttered a few days ago are open and doing a brisk business once more. The cafés are thronged inside and out. The boulevards are bright with streams of many-coloured humanity. The newspapers which dish up the same stories day after day are grabbed at by citizens eager to obtain the first news of the military movements. The only striking differences one discerns between this and normal times affect the lives of the well-to-do classes. All the theatres, cinematographs, and other places of amusement are closed. Some of the principal hotels are turned into temporary hospitals. Public conveyances, whether cabs or taxis, can hardly be said to exist. Certain sorts of food which were formerly exported, such as peaches, grapes, and chickens, have hardly any market and are being sold at half prices. Flowers are withering on their stalks for lack of buyers. Artisans, such as electricians and plumbers, have vanished. Notwithstanding these changes, added Dr. Dillon, the links with the cheerful life of a month ago had not yet been severed. The people of Brussels were still blithesome and self-confident, buoyed up by the sense of security imparted by the heroic conduct of their defenders and the consciousness of a right cause. As yet the unquiet temper of war had nowhere manifested itself, yet maimed warriors, homeless families, destitute women, orphaned children, claimed and received attention, and reminded the observer all too suggestively of the harvest of misery yet to be garnered in. A couple of hours' drive out of the town took one to a world of grim realities and sinister contrasts. Over the country between Tirlemont and Saint Trond, but yesterday full of tame beauty, rich in cornfields and carefully tended gardens, the withering breath of the ruthless Moloch had already fitfully passed. As the traveller moved along the dusty road, catching a glimpse of an occasional farmhouse quivering in the distance through the heat of the August day, he might well feel beset by the vague dangers that might at any moment have started into concrete shape and ended his hopes and cares for all time.