In December, curious to see the damage done by the Huns, she went with a girl friend to visit the town of Dinant, that spot of infamous memory, where the boches shot down civilians—men, women and children—like dogs, and dragged their families out to see their execution. On the tram, the girls fell into conversation with a man who, a native of Dinant, had nearly been massacred on that fearful day in August. He said he had been lined up with the other victims and the order given. Shots were poured into the helpless crowd. He owed his escape to the fact that he was in the second line and was short, the man in front being a tall noble, who turned out to be a cousin of my Yolande. He showed the girls a sharp, white line along the top of his head, where the bullet had passed. He fell beneath the cousin of my friend, who, being a large, heavy man, completely covered him. During the night the boches came back often and fired into the dark mass, did they see the slightest movement. All during the night the man talked in undertones to the wounded noble, who told him to be still until dawn, when they might hope to escape in the morning mists by swimming the Meuse. About 3:30 a. m., the traveler spoke to the noble, and, getting no reply, very slowly and carefully moved his hand up to where he thought the head was. The body had been growing heavier and heavier and he had been saturated with a wet substance. What was his horror to find the head had been shot away in the last volley! He waited, silent as the dead about him, until the morning mists crept up from the river, then wriggled out from the mass of dead, and effected his escape by creeping down the bank and swimming the Meuse in the early dawn before the sun rose. My poor Yolande was deeply affected by this recital. She had known of the murder of her relative, but none of the details. On reaching Dinant, she visited the devastated part of the town, where some poor wretched women sought shelter under their broken roofs, having lost everything, and not knowing where their families were scattered, having nowhere else to go, they came back like homeless cats, nothing but broken walls, shattered roofs and piles of plaster, bricks, charred wood, and perhaps a chimney to show what had once been their homes; but they came back and poked among the rubbish with sticks, hoping to find a spoon or cooking utensil; many holding monkey-like babies to their starved breasts, all that remained to them of their previous families. Sitting thus, holding their starving children to their bosoms, their vacant faces and shrivelled forms outlined under the roofless doorways; staring at space, they presented a truly desolate picture. My friend spoke to them and tried to awaken and cheer them, but it was useless, they were too far gone in misery to even understand.