disfigured, and regretted having
wished to drive too keen a bargain, but on finding it intact, I am
ashamed to say the collector's instinct got the better of the woman,
and I used every conceivable argument to persuade him to come to my
price. The old fellow was as obdurate as ever.

"But," I suggested, "don't you realise what a risk you are taking?
Suppose the Germans were to get back here again before you sell it?
You're much nearer the front than we! You will not only lose your
money, but the world will be minus one more good thing, and we've lost
too many of those already."

The withering glance with which this remark was received was as good as
any discourse on patriotism.

"The Germans back here? Never! Why at the rate we're going now it
will be all over before Spring and you'll see what a price my paper
will fetch just as soon as peace comes!"

Peace! Peace! the word was on every lip, the thought in every heart,
and yet every intelligence, every energy was bent on the prosecution of
the most hateful warfare ever known. In all the universe it seemed to
me that the wild animals were the only creatures really exempt from
preoccupation about the fray. It might be war for man and the friends
of man, but for them had come an unexpected reprieve, and even the more
wary soon felt their exemption from pursuit. Man was so busy fighting
his own kind that a wonderful armistice had unconsciously arisen
between him and these creatures, and so birds and beasts, no longer
frightened by his proximity, were indulging in a perfect revel of
freedom.

During the first weeks of the conflict, the "cotton-tails," always so
numerous on our estate, were simply terrified by the booming of the
guns. If even the distant bombardment assumed any importance, they
would disappear below ground completely, for days at a time. My old
foxhound was quite disconcerted. But like all the rest of us they soon
became accustomed to it, and presently displayed a self assurance and a
familiarity undreamed of, save perhaps in the Garden of Eden.

[Illustration: VIEW OF CHATEAU-THIERRY]

It became a common sight to see a brood of partridges or pheasants
strutting along the roadside like any barnyard hen and chickens, and
one recalled with amazement the times when stretching themselves on
their claws they would timidly and fearfully crane their necks above
the grass at the sound of an approaching step.

At present they are not at all sure t