"Verdun is so lovely. You look for miles over the country from the high terraces--the houses are so clean and trim. They look so stable--everything seems so settled to me here as if it had been living years upon years and had learned how to be happy and grow in one place. I wonder if that is the difference between the American and French towns. These places look as if nothing could disturb them. I'm sure if when I'm old and gray and come back to Verdun, it will all be the same and I'll sit on the terrace looking out on the Meuse and drink my coffee just as I did last Thursday night!--Only--only if the Germans should get near here--they can throw their hideous shells so far, the men say--I could fancy them popping a big one down right into the middle of our garden, scattering us right and left. "Up to the time we reached Verdun we had sailed through. The most secret places were opened for us. But the fact that Austria had declared war on Serbia certainly slowed up our wheels. It looked on Wednesday as if we wouldn't be able to leave Verdun. Henry's friend--he always knows a man everywhere--wasn't there--he'd been suddenly called, transferred. Nobody knew us and everybody suspected us, but Mr. Laurence was determined to get into Belgium at once. We'd be free there, he said, and could play around until things settled down. He had to use all his influence to get out. It was only when he enlisted our officer friends at Toul by telephone that he was allowed to go. We had just such a time at Maubeuge yesterday and certainly it looked like war there. "They were beginning to cut down the trees--to open up the country and to put up barbed-wire fences--to hold up people--I couldn't help wondering if the wire came from Sabinsport. I never heard of such a thing. Henry says that his officer friend told him that the Germans on the other side of the frontier began clearing out trees and preparing wire entanglements five days ago and that was before Austria declared war. What does it mean? "But here we are in Belgium--nice, neutral Belgium! "Saturday, Aug. 1.