aired priest with a white
crucifix held high before him. Behind him was another priest reading
from a book of prayer. Two laymen came next, bearing a little
white-painted table with a little white coffin--a cheap board
coffin--resting on it. There was a canopy of plain white boards over the
little coffin. There were a few white blossoms on the canopy and beside
the coffin a few lilies of the valley--only a few.

Two other laymen followed the coffin bearers. All the men were
bareheaded. Three women--young women and young mothers to look
at--followed the two men. One of the young women was in deep black. A
group of little girls followed the young woman. Two very old women came
last. No more than that, walking through a crowded street at two o'clock
of a bright day!

It was on us almost before we saw it. Men took off their hats as it
passed; women blessed themselves. Sometimes men's lips murmured a short
prayer; always the women did. The soldiers and sailors, when they were
French, saluted nearly always; the British sometimes. The officers, if
anything, saluted more profoundly than the enlisted men, and, when they
did not stop dead, held a hand to their caps for eight or ten paces in
passing.

Two soldiers were talking with two girls of the streets. One of the
soldiers took off his cap. One of the girls stopped talking to say a
little word of prayer. Both soldiers faced about, and all four gazed in
silence for long after the little cortege had passed on. Then the first
soldier put on his cap, all faced about, and resumed their talk, but
more slowly and not quite so loudly as before.

An English Tommy was driving a tram--a swearing Tommy that you could
hear a block away. He came on the mourners from behind. He was in a
hurry, and by clanging his bell he could have crowded by. But he held
the tram in check, nursing it so as not to frighten the two old women in
the rear--until they came to a wide square. Here there was room. He
clanged his bell, not too loudly, turned on the juice, and hurried to
make up for lost time. Men are being killed by the million over here,
and other men who have been there--these very men on these streets--will
tell you that they hardly turn their heads to see one more killed. But a
little child is different.

Our steamer was to sail next night--at what hour no one could say, but
it was well to be there in good time, we were told, so we went with the
hotel bus. A little porter woman was there w