have not found anything tangible to account for such hope as
continues to "spring eternal" in all our breasts. It springs, however,
the powers be thanked. At present it is as big an asset as France
has.

A Zeppelin got to Paris last night. We are sorry, but we'll forget it as
soon as the women and children are buried. We are sorry, but it is not
important.

Things are a bit livened up here. Day before yesterday a regiment of
dragoons arrived. They are billeted for three months. They are men
from the midi, and, alas! none too popular at this moment. Still, they
have been well received, and their presence does liven up the place.
This morning, before I was up, I heard the horses trotting by for their
morning exercise, and got out of bed to watch them going along the
hill. After the deadly tiresome waiting silence that has reigned here all
winter, it made the hillside look like another place.

Add to that the fact that the field work has begun, and that, when the
sun shines, I can go out on the lawn and watch the ploughs turning
up the ground, and see the winter grain making green patches
everywhere--and I do not need to tell you that, with the spring, my
thoughts will take a livelier turn. The country is beginning to look
beautiful. I took my drive along the valley of the Grande Morin in the
afternoon yesterday. The wide plains of the valley are being
ploughed, and the big horses dragging ploughs across the wide fields
did look lovely--just like a Millet or a Daubigny canvas.

Since I wrote you I have been across to the battlefield again, to
accompany a friend who came out from Paris. It was all like a new
picture. The grain is beginning to sprout in tender green about the
graves, which have been put in even better order than when I first
saw them. The rude crosses of wood, from which the bark had not
even been stripped, have been replaced by tall, carefully made
crosses painted white, each marked with a name and number. Each
single grave and each group of graves has a narrow footpath about
it, and is surrounded by a wire barrier, while tiny approaches are
arranged to each. Everywhere military signs are placed, reminding
visitors that these fields are private property, that they are all planted,
and entreating all politely to conduct themselves accordingly, which
means literally, "keep off the wheat."

The German graves, which, so far as I remember, were unmarked
when I was out there nearly four months ago, have no