cers were likely to come over, and one idea was fixed in my
mind: I must not look demoralized. So I put on a clean white frock,
white shoes and stockings, a big black bow in my hair, and I felt equal
to anything--in spite of the fact that before I dressed I heard far off
a booming-could it be cannon ?--and more than once a nearer
explosion,--more bridges down, more English across.

It was not much after nine when two English officers strolled down the
road--Captain Edwards and Major Ellison, of the Bedfordshire Light
Infantry. They came into the garden, and the scene with Captain Simpson
of the day before was practically repeated. They examined the plain,
located the towns, looked long at it with their glasses; and that being
over I put the usual question, "Can I do anything for you?" and got the
usual answer, "Eggs."

I asked how many officers there were in the mess, and he replied "Five";
so I promised to forage, and away they went.

As soon as they were out of sight the picket set up a howl for baths.
These Bedfordshire boys were not hungry, but they had retreated from
their last battle leaving their kits in the trenches, and were without
soap or towels, or combs or razors. But that was easily remedied. They
washed up in relays in the court at Amelie's--it was a little more
retired. As Amelie had put all her towels, etc., down underground, I
ran back and forward between my house and hers for all sorts of things,
and, as they slopped until the road ran tiny rivulets, I had to change
shoes and stockings twice. I was not conscious till afterward how funny
it all was. I must have been a good deal like an excited duck, and
Amelie like a hen with a duckling. When she was not twitching my sash
straight, she was running about after me with dry shoes and stockings,
and a chair, for fear "madame was getting too tired"; and when she was
not doing that she was clapping my big garden hat on my head, for fear
"madame would get a sunstroke." The joke was that I did not know it was
hot. I did not even know it was funny until afterward, when the whole
scene seemed to have been by a sort of dual process photographed
unconsciously on my memory.

When the boys were all washed and shaved and combed,--and
they were so larky over it,--we were like old friends. I did not know
one of them by name, but I did know who was married, and who had
children; and how one man's first child had been born since he left
England, and no new