he looks from the window of her villa.

The villa itself is small and ugly. The furnishing is the furnishing
of a summer seaside cottage. The windows fit badly and rattle in the
gale. In the long drawing room--really a living room--in which I
waited for the Queen, a heavy red curtain had been hung across the
lower part of the long French windows that face the sea, to keep out
the draft. With that and an open coal fire the room was fairly
comfortable.

As I waited I looked about. Rather a long room this, which has seen so
many momentous discussions, so much tragedy and real grief. A chaotic
room too; for, in addition to its typical villa furnishing of
chintz-covered chairs and a sofa or two, an ordinary pine table by a
side window was littered with papers.

On a centre table were books--H.G. Wells' "The War in the Air"; two
American books written by correspondents who had witnessed the
invasion of Belgium; and several newspapers. A hideous marble bust on
a pedestal occupied a corner, and along a wall was a very small
cottage piano. On the white marble mantel were a clock and two
candlesticks. Except for a great basket of heather on a stand--a gift
to Her Majesty---the room was evidently just as its previous owners
had left it. A screen just inside the door, a rather worn rug on the
floor, and a small brocade settee by the fireplace completed the
furnishing.

The door opened and the Queen entered without ceremony. I had not seen
her before. In her simple blue dress, with its white lawn collar and
cuffs, she looked even more girlish than I had anticipated. Like Queen
Mary of England, she had suffered from the camera. She is indeed
strikingly beautiful, with lovely colouring and hair, and with very
direct wide eyes, set far apart. She is small and slender, and moves
quickly. She speaks beautiful English, in that softly inflected voice
of the Continent which is the envy of all American women.

I bowed as she entered; and she shook hands with me at once and asked
me to sit down. She sat on the sofa by the fireplace. Like the Queen
of England, like King Albert, her first words were of gratitude to
America.

It is not my intention to record here anything but the substance of my
conversation with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Much that was said was
the free and unrestricted speech of two women, talking over together a
situation which was tragic to them both; for Queen Elisabeth allowed
me to forget, as I think she had ceas