ell you that I waked the next morning to find that
I had a picket at my gate. I did not know until Amelie came to get my
coffee ready the next morning--that was Thursday, September 3--can it be
that it is only five days ago! She also brought me news that they were
preparing to blow up the bridges on the Marne; that the post-office had
gone; that the English were cutting the telegraph wires.

While I was taking my coffee, quietly, as if it were an everyday
occurrence, she said: "Well, madame, I imagine that we are going to see
the Germans. Pere is breaking an opening into the underground passage
under the stable, and we are going to put all we can out of sight.
Will you please gather up what you wish to save, and it can be hidden
there?"

I don't know that I ever told you that all the hill is honeycombed with
those old subterranean passages, like the one we saw at Provins. They
say that they go as far as Crecy-en-Brie, and used to connect the royal
palace there with one on this hill.

Naturally I gave a decided refusal to any move of that sort, so far as I
was concerned. My books and portraits are the only things I should be
eternally hurt to survive. To her argument that the books could be put
there,--there was room enough,--I refused to listen. I had no idea of
putting my books underground to be mildewed. Besides, if it had been
possible I would not have attempted it--and it distinctly was
impossible. I felt a good deal like the Belgian refugies I had
seen,--all so well dressed; if my house was going up, it was going up in
its best clothes. I had just been uprooted once--a horrid
operation--and I did not propose to do it again so soon. To that my
mind was made up.

Luckily for me--for Amelie was as set as I was--the argument was cut
short by a knock at the front door. I opened it to find standing there
a pretty French girl whom I had been seeing every day, as, morning and
evening, she passed my gate to and from the railway station. Sooner or
later I should have told you about her if all this excitement had not
put it out of my mind and my letters. I did not know her name. I had
never got to asking Amelie who she was, though I was a bit surprised to
find any one of her type here where I had supposed there were only
farmers and peasants.

She apologized for presenting herself so informally: said she had come,
"de la parte de maman," to ask me what I proposed to do. I replied at
once, "I am staying."