g in the library when my guest, Chef-Major Weitzel, rode up
to the gate. I had a good chance to look him over, as he marched up the
path. He was a dapper, upright, little chap. He was covered with dust
from his head to his heels. I could have written his name on him
anywhere. Then I went to the door to meet him. I suppose he had been
told that he was to be lodged in the house of an American. He stopped
abruptly, halfway up the path, as I appeared, clicked his heels
together, and made me his best bow, as he said:--

"I am told, madame, that you are so gracious as to offer me a bed."

I might have replied literally, "Offer? I had no choice," but I did not.
I said politely that if Monsieur le Chef-Major would take the trouble to
enter, I should do myself the distinguished honor of conducting him to
his chamber, having no servant for the moment to perform for him that
service, and he bowed at me again, and marched in--no other word for
it--and came up the stairs behind me.

As I opened the door of my guest-room, and stood aside to let him pass,
I found that he had paused halfway up and was giving my raftered green
salon and the library beyond a curious glance. Being caught, he looked
up at once and said: "So you are not afraid?" I supposed he was inspired
by the fact that there were no signs of any preparations to evacuate.

I replied that I could not exactly say that, but that I had not been
sufficiently afraid to run away and leave my house to be looted unless I
had to.

"Well," he said, with a pleasant laugh, "that is about as good an
account of himself as many a brave soldier can give the night before his
first battle "; and he passed me with a bow and I closed the door.

Half an hour later he came downstairs, all shaved and slicked up--in a
white sweater, white tennis shoes, with a silk handkerchief about his
neck, and a fatigue cap set rakishly on the side of his head, as if
there were no such thing as hot weather or war, while his orderly went
up and brought his equipment down to the terrace, and began such a
beating, brushing, and cleaning of boots as you never saw.

At the library door he stopped, looked in, and said, "This is nice"; and
before I could get together decent French enough to say that I was
honored--or my house was--at his approval, he asked if he might be so
indiscreet as to take the liberty of inviting some of his fellow
officers to come into the garden and see the view. Naturally I re