People are always telling one that danger is now
over--a hidden gun has been discovered and captured, and there will be
no more shelling. Quel blague! The shelling goes on just the same
whether hidden guns are captured or not.

I can't say at present when I shall get home, because no one ever knows
what is going to happen. I don't quite know who would take my place at
the soup-kitchen if I were to leave.

_25 December._--My Christmas Day began at midnight, when I walked home
through the moonlit empty streets of Furnes. At 2 a.m. the guns began to
roar, and roared all night. They say the Allies are making an attack.

I got up early and went to church in the untidy school-room at the
hospital, which is called the nurses' sitting-room. Mr. Streatfield had
arranged a little altar, which was quite nice, and had set some chairs
in an orderly row. As much as in him lay--from the altar linen to the
white artificial flowers in the vases--all was as decent as could be and
there were candles and a cross. We were quite a small congregation, but
another service had been held earlier, and the wounded heard Mass in
their ward at 6 a.m. The priests put up an altar there, and I believe
the singing was excellent. Inside we prayed for peace, and outside the
guns went on firing. Prince Alexander of Teck came to our service--a
big soldierly figure in the bare room.

[Page Heading: CHRISTMAS IN BELGIUM]

After breakfast I went to the soup-kitchen at the station, as usual,
then home--_i.e._, to the hospital to lunch. At 3.15 came a sort of
evensong with hymns, and then we went to the civil hospital, where there
was a Christmas-tree for all the Belgian refugee children. Anything more
touching I never saw, and to be with them made one blind with tears. One
tiny mite, with her head in bandages, and a little black shawl on, was
introduced to me as "une blessee, madame." Another little boy in the
hospital is always spoken of gravely as "the civilian."

Every man, woman, and child got a treat or a present or a good dinner.
The wounded had turkey, and all they could eat, and the children got
toys and sweets off the tree. I suppose these children are not much
accustomed to presents, for their delight was almost too much for them.
I have never seen such excitement! Poor mites! without homes or money,
and with their relations often lost--yet little boys were gibbering over
their toys, and little girls clung to big parcels, and squeaked dolls or
b