I watch her as she sits in the sunshine, and I multiply her by hundreds and thousands, innocent people, old folk and babies, old men and women lying down by the roadside to die, and the horror comes like a great tidal wave, sweeping all things before it, drowning all the joy of life and the old sweet ways of living. It breaks on the brick wall of my garden and is driven back; I will not be overwhelmed by any anguish of human fate, my own, or that of any one else. Until some wandering star strikes the earth and shivers it to atoms, there is hope somewhere, and there are things to do! And Marie Lepont shall not be overwhelmed either, in spite of the terrible things she sees, waking or sleeping, for she starts up and cries out in the night; Don gives a little comforting, reassuring bark, and she goes to sleep again. I've got to find her lover for her, and how shall I begin? I'll go and ask the pony! October 14. My fugitive fits quietly into our life in the little red house, saying little, trying to do much, and smiling more and more. I do not talk to her, but now and then I sit and sew with her; I know that she is most domestic, and that this will make her feel at home, but I should hate to have her examine my seams and hems, for I am no seamstress. I leave her much alone with the animals, and that seems to help more than anything else; the Atom spends much of its time on her shoulder. She has begged to be allowed to feed the chickens, for Madge has insisted on our having chickens, and Peter has constructed a yard for them, with a little house for winter, a bit down the stream. Sea gulls come sailing on wide beautiful white wings and descend to the chicken yard, walk about and steal food, to the helpless wrath of our fowls. Even Hengist and Horsa retreat; they are two twin stately cocks, and William the Conqueror is a bigger one, with spurs. He is quite the greatest coward in the yard, and entirely in awe of his Matildas. It is thus that I am making history concrete for Madge; my long line of British queens does credit to the dynasty, though they are a bit miscellaneous in ancestry. Boadicea is a dark beauty, wild and fierce; my vainest, long-necked, red-brown hen is Queen Elizabeth; oh, the cackling when she lays an egg! The large, fat, rather stupid one is Queen Anne; I let Madge choose and name Queen Victoria herself, and she selected a plump and comely grey fowl, rather diminutive, with an imperative and yet appealing cluck, who will make, I know, an excellent wife and mother. It is all very well to keep hens and to eat their eggs, but I have given notice to Madge that not one of these companions of my daily life shall be sold to the butcher or served upon my table. The gingerbread baby comes giggling through the gate at least once a day, and it has taken a great fancy to Marie. It proves to be the eleventh and youngest child of my friend the blacksmith, and it has early developed, probably from constant association with so many swift