he hill ere they reached the German
trench;
General J---- cried out: "Tres bon"; "Not half," said Marshal
F----;
An angry Emperor shook his fist and at his legions raved,
And then (the C----r lets me say) the cheery Blankshires shaved.

Rally, O rally, ye Blankshire men, rally to fill the gaps;
Seek victories (all unknown to us), bear (well-suppressed) mishaps;
And when you've made a gallant charge and pierced the angry foe
Your names won't get to your people at home, but BUCKMASTER will
know.

* * * * *

OUR NATIONAL GUESTS.

II.

The truth is that the Belgians in Crashie Howe are enjoying a _succes
fou_. There is the enterprising Marie, who thinks nothing of going off
on her own, on the strength of an English vocabulary only a fortnight
old, overwhelming the stationmaster and boarding an ambulance train
full of wounded Belgians at the local station to ask for news of her
brothers. (We were all delighted when an adventurous letter
miraculously arrived from the Pas de Calais on Saturday and reported
that both brothers were well and unwounded.) There is Victor, who,
although only thirteen, is already a _pupille d'armee_ and has a
uniform quite as good as any fighting man. I can tell you he has put
our Boy Scouts in the shade. But Victor is afraid the war will be over
before he is old enough to get at it.

Then, again, there is the small Juliette, who is dark, with a
comfortable little face constructed almost entirely of dimples, and,
at the age of eight, has been discovered knitting stockings at a
prodigious pace while she looked the other way. I am afraid Juliette
is being held up as an example to other children of the neighbourhood,
but I think her great popularity may well survive even that. And there
is Louis, who is a marvel at making bird-cages, and Rosalie, whose
pride is in the shine of her pots and pans. They are all doing well.

Rosalie, it is true, has had a fearful bout of toothache, so bad that
she had to retire to bed for a day. When Dr. Anderson, whose French is
very good, had successfully diagnosed the trouble and told her that
the only cure was to have the tooth out, she plaintively replied that
she had thought of that herself, but, alas, it was impossible, for "it
was too firmly implanted." For my part I sympathised with Rosalie--I
have often felt like that.

The grandmother rather likes to sit apart, beaming, far fro