_Wednesday._--No change! M. le Maire asked me if I would billet two British soldiers to-day. I found them pleasant fellows enough; young lieutenants of an infantry regiment. Such youths, one of them cannot be more than eighteen years of age: a handsome boy, with the deep blue eyes and fair curling hair, typical of his race. They appear to regard the war more in the light of a big picnic. But they have not yet been up to the firing lines, nor seen the terrors of battle. Again to-day two enemy air machines came over. They hit Laroche’s wine store and killed him and his wife and children. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that they are but of minor importance when compared with those diabolical shells. _Thursday._--The two soldiers left again this afternoon, smiling and joking as they came. All the afternoon and far into the night the infantry have been marching past, along the road, thousands of them, regiment after regiment, with their bands playing gayly at their head. The men all happy and contented, marching as if they were going on parade, instead of up to the firing line, many of them never to return. They have brave hearts these English! Many wagons of ammunition have been placed in the wood behind this house. They call it an ammunition park. Why, I know not. _Friday._--All to-day it rained and thundered. Thundered as if God in His Heaven were venting His wrath on the warring world below. For one long day there has been no booming of those awful guns. The road has become bare and deserted. In the evening came men into my house from the ammunition wagons in the wood. They told me that they had caught a spy. I am not surprised; this district swarms with them. But what otherwise can be expected if, previous to the war, the entire business relations of the neighborhood were conducted with the Germans? Every purchasable article from a motor-car to a needle was supplied from Berlin. This man was discovered in a deserted part of the wood, sending messages on a telegraph key. A sapper of the engineers saw the wire laid across the ground, and curious to know whither it led followed it along until he discovered this man. He will trouble us no more. But the unhappy result of it is, they say he signaled the position to the enemy, who will undoubtedly bombard us when the weather becomes fine again.