e their job!"

The words were spoken so carelessly that for a few seconds I did not
realise their meaning. But there was that in the expression of the man
who spoke them which showed there was no lack of realisation there. How
often I have recalled them, with a sore heart, in these recent weeks of
heavy losses in the air-service--losses due, I have no doubt, to the
special claims upon it of the German retreat.

The conversation dropped a little, till one of my companions, with a
smile, pointed overhead. Three splendid biplanes were sailing above us,
at a great height, bound south-wards. "Back from the line!" said the
officer beside me, and we watched them till they dipped and disappeared
in the sunset clouds. Then tea and pleasant talk. The young men insist
that D. shall make tea. This visit of two ladies is a unique event. For
the moment, as she makes tea in their sitting-room, which is now full of
men, there is an illusion of home.

Then we are off, for another fifty miles. Darkness comes on, the roads
are unfamiliar. At last an avenue and bright lights. We have reached the
Visitors' Chateau, under the wing of G.H.Q.

No. 2

_March 31st, 1917_.

DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--My first letter you will perhaps remember took us
to the Visitors' Chateau of G.H.Q. and left us alighting there, to be
greeted by the same courteous host, Captain----, who presided last year
over another Guest House far away. But we were not to sleep at the
Chateau, which was already full of guests. Arrangements had been made
for us at a cottage in the village near, belonging to the village
schoolmistress; the motor took us there immediately, and after changing
our travel-stained dresses, we went back to the Chateau for dinner. Many
guests--all of them of course of the male sex, and much talk! Some of
the guests--members of Parliament, and foreign correspondents--had been
over the Somme battlefield that day, and gave alarmist accounts of the
effects of the thaw upon the roads and the ground generally. Banished
for a time by the frost, the mud had returned; and mud, on the front,
becomes a kind of malignant force which affects the spirits of
the soldiers.

The schoolmistress and her little maid sat up for us, and shepherded us
kindly to bed. Never was there a more strangely built little house! The
ceilings came down on our heads, the stairs were perpendicular. But
there was a stove in each room, and the beds though hard, and the floor
though b