me to rest.

Not long before noon a bicycle scout came over with a message from
Captain Edwards, and I sent by him a basket of eggs, a cold chicken, and
a bottle of wine as a contribution to the breakfast at the officers'
mess; and by the time I had eaten my breakfast, the picket had been
changed, and I saw no more of those boys.

During the afternoon the booming off at the east became more distinct.
It surely was cannon. I went out to the gate where the corporal of the
guard was standing, and asked him, "Do I hear cannon?" "Sure," he
replied. "Do you know where it is?" I asked. He said he hadn't an
idea--about twenty-five or thirty miles away. And on he marched, up and
down the road, perfectly indifferent to it.

When Amelie came to help get tea at the gate, she said that a man from
Voisins, who had started with the crowd that left here Wednesday, had
returned. He had brought back the news that the sight on the road was
simply horrible. The refugies had got so blocked in their hurry that
they could move in neither direction; cattle and horses were so tired
that they fell by the way; it would take a general to disentangle them.
My! wasn't I glad that I had not been tempted to get into that mess!

Just after the boys had finished their tea, Captain Edwards came down
the road, swinging my empty basket on his arm, to say "Thanks" for his
breakfast. He looked at the table at the gate.

"So the men have been having tea--lucky men--and bottled water! What
extravagance!"

"Come in and have some, too," I said.

"Love to," he answered, and in he came.

While I was making the tea he walked about the house, looked at the
pictures, examined the books. Just as the table was ready there was a
tremendous explosion. He went to the door, looked off, and remarked, as
if it were the most natural thing in the world, "Another division
across. That should be the last."

"Are all the bridges down?" I asked.

"All, I think, except the big railroad bridge behind you--Chalifert.
That will not go until the last minute."

I wanted to ask, "When will it be the 'last minute'--and what does the
'last minute' mean?"--but where was the good? So we went into the
dining-room. As he threw his hat on to a chair and sat down with a
sigh, he said, "You see before you a very humiliated man. About half an
hour ago eight of the Uhlans we are looking for rode right into the
street below you, in Voisins. We saw them, but they got away. It