While she was serving him, Aurelle espied behind the shop a charming, bright little apartment, decorated with plates on the wall, and a clean cloth, with green and white squares, on the table. He strolled carelessly towards the door. Madame Lemaire looked suspiciously at him and folded her arms across her enormous bust. "Would you believe, madame, that there are in this village people so unpatriotic as to refuse to take in officers, who do not know where to eat their meals?" "Is it possible?" said Madame Lemaire, blushing. He told her who they were. "Ah, the carpenter’s wife!" said Madame Lemaire, turning up her nose in disgust. "I am not surprised. They come from Moevekerke, and the people of Moevekerke are all bad." "But it seems to me," insinuated Aurelle gently, "that you have a room here that would just do." * * * * * A week later the village and the brigade were tasting the pure joys of the honeymoon. In each house a Jack, a Ginger or a Darkey helped to wash up, called the old lady Granny, and joked with the girls. The London Territorials were quite forgotten. At night, in the barns, beribboned bagpipes accompanied the monotonous dances. Aurelle had lodged the padre at Madame Potiphar’s, a lively young widow to whom the divisions, billeted in turn in the village, had handed on this nickname, like a local password. The virtue of the padre, which had protected him against the solid charms of three young negresses, feared nothing from the manoeuvres of a village Potiphar. Parker and O’Grady shared a large room in the inn. They called the publican and his wife Papa and Mamma. Lucie and Berthe, the daughters of the house, taught them French. Lucie was six feet high; she was pretty, slender, and fair. Berthe was more substantial and remarkably good-natured. These two fine Flemish girls, honest without prudishness, greedy of gain, lacking in culture but not in shrewdness, were the admiration of Major Parker. Although their father was in a fair way to making a fortune by selling the Tommies English beer made in France, they never thought of asking him for money for their clothes or of making a servant work in their stead. "One ought to be able to fight when one leaves such women at home," said the major admiringly. The father was the same sort. He described to Aurelle the death of his son, a splendid boy, three times mentioned in despatches. He talked of him with a pride and resignation truly admirable. Aurelle advised the publican, if he had a few hundred francs to spare, to put them in the War Loan. "I have already put in fifty thousand francs," said the old man. "I shall wait a little now." The whole village was rich. Colonel Bramble gave two sous one day to Madame Lemaire’s son, an urchin of five or six. "To buy some sweets with," Aurelle told him. "Oh no, I don’t care for them." "What will you do with your sous, then?"