shoots it. _Ma foi_, it's a good
adventure when the German guns are not asleep! The fruit? Ah, that is
easy! It comes as the air we breathe. And for our bonbons, the famous
sugared almonds of Verdun were not all destroyed when the factory blew
up."

With this he handed me a dish of the delicious things. "The story is,"
he said, "that a certain Abbess brought the secret of making these
almonds to Verdun. We have to thank Henry of Navarre for her. He had a
pleasant way, when he wished to be rid of an old love with a compliment,
of turning her into an Abbess. That time he made a lucky stroke for us."

At the end of luncheon we all drank healths, and nearly everyone made a
speech except Mrs. Beckett. She only nodded and smiled, looking so ideal
a little mother that she must have made even the highest officers
homesick for their _mamans_.

Then we were led through a mysterious network of narrow passages and
vaulted rooms, all lit with electric lamps, and striking cold and
cellary. We saw the big hospital, not very busy just then, and the
clean, empty operating theatre, and gnome-caverns where munitions were
stored in vast, black pyramids. When there was nothing left to see in
the citadel, our hosts asked if we would like to pay a visit to the
trenches--old trenches which had once defended Thiaumont.

"I don't think my wife had better----" Mr. Beckett began; but the little
old lady cut him short. "Yes, Father, I just _had_ better! To-day, being
among all these splendid brave soldiers has shown me that I'm weak--a
spoiled child. I felt yesterday I'd been a coward. Now I _know_ it! And
I'm _going_ to see those trenches."

I believe it was partly the powder and lip salve that made her so
desperate!

Her husband yielded, meek as a lamb. Big men like Mr. Beckett always do
to little women like Mrs. Beckett. But she bore it well. And when at
last we bade good-bye to our glorious hosts, she said to me, "Molly, you
tell them in French, that now I've met _them_ I understand why the
Germans could never pass!"

CHAPTER XVIII

Almost any place on earth would be an anti-climax the day after
Verdun--but not Rheims!

Just at this moment (it mayn't be much more) Rheims is resting, like a
brave victim on the rack who has tired his torturers by an obstinate
silence. Only a few people are allowed to enter the town, save those who
have lived there all along, and learned to think no more of German bombs
than German sausages; a