erous boys who
kept saying every minute 'maman!' in a sort of whine or expostulation,
and two _aides-de-camp_ maids in spotless fly-away caps. With these
assistants she was on perfect terms, and the maids conversed with her
and dissented from her opinions on the happiest terms of equality.
When taking my ticket I was asked to say would I go to Commines in
France or to Commines in Belgium, for it seems that, by an odd
arrangement, half the town is in one country and half in the other!
Each has a station of its own. This curious partition I did not quite
comprehend at first, and I shall not forget the indignant style in
which, on my asking 'was this the French Commines,' I was answered
that '_of course_ it was Commines in Belgium.' Here was yet another
piquant bell-tower seen rising above trees and houses, long before we
even came near to it. I was pursued by these pretty monuments, and I
could hear this one jangling away musically yet wheezily.

It is past noon now as we hurry by unfamiliar stations, where the
invariable _abbe_ waits with his bundle or breviary in hand, or
peasant women with baskets stand waiting for other trains. There is a
sense of melancholy in noting these strange faces and figures--whom
you thus pass by, to whom you are unknown, whom you will never see
again, and who care not if you were dead and buried. (And why should
they?) Then we hurry away northwards.

IX.

_YPRES._

As the fierce heat of the sun began to relax and the evening drew
on--it was close on half-past six o'clock--we found ourselves in
Belgium once more. Suddenly, on the right, I noted, with some trees
interposed, a sort of clustered town with whitened buildings, which
suggested forcibly the view of an English cathedral town seen from the
railway. The most important of the group was a great tower with its
four spires. I knew instinctively that this was the famous old
town-hall, the most astonishing and overpowering of all Belgian
monuments.

Here we halted half an hour. The sun was going down; the air was cool;
and there was that strange tinge of sadness abroad, with which the air
seems to be charged towards eventide, as we, strangers and pilgrims in
a foreign country, look from afar off at some such unfamiliar objects.
There were a number of Flemings here returning from some meeting where
they had been contending at their national game--shooting at the
popinjay. Near to every small town and village I passed, I had not