ing it from little signs, as a
naturalist might study the habits of a nest of ants. The Germans are
probably much more successful at that than we are.

It is strange to us that there are towns and cities over there only a
few miles away from us, and for a hundred miles back from that, of whose
life we know nothing except that they have been ravished and ruined by
the heavy hand of Prussian militarism. But, for the people who live
around us here, it is a tragedy of which I had not the least conception
until I actually saw it.

We had a cup of coffee the other day in the house of an old lady whose
husband had been called out two years ago, a few days after the war
began.

"All my own people are over there, monsieur," she said, nodding her head
towards the lines. "They were all living in the invaded country, and I
have not heard of them for eighteen months. I do not know whether they
are alive or dead. I only know that they are all ruined. They were
farmers, monsieur, comfortably off on a big farm. But consider the fines
that the Boches have put upon the country.

"The only thing we know, monsieur, it was from a cousin who was taken
prisoner by the Boches. You know we are allowed to write to the
prisoners, and they have the privilege to write to people in the invaded
country. So my family wrote to my cousin to ask news of my mother, who
was a very old woman. And after weeks and weeks the answer came
back--'Mother dead.'

"It was not so terrible that, monsieur, because my mother was old. But
then--he who was my dear friend," she always referred to her husband by
this term, "my dear friend used to write to us every day in those times.
He was fighting in Alsace, monsieur, and for his bravery he had been
promoted upon the field of battle to be an officer. He wrote every
single day to me and the children. We were always so united--never a
harsh word between us during all the years we were married--he was
always gentle and tender and affectionate--a good husband and father,
monsieur, and he sent the letter every day to my brother-in-law, who is
a soldier in Paris, and my brother-in-law sent it on to us.

"There came one day when he wrote to us saying that he was out behind
the trenches waiting for an attack which they were to make in two hours'
time. He had had his breakfast, and was smoking his pipe quite content.
There the letter ended, and for three days no letter came from my dear
friend. And then my brother-in-law wr