elvin Hall. He
is at present assigned to other business, but I have secured the
services of another volunteer chauffeur, Francis Colby. I shall travel
in his touring-car and bring back in it the older children and their
English governess. The second machine, a large limousine, will be
driven by the French chauffeur of Countess X., and into it I shall
pack the smaller children and their two nurses.

* * * * *

The condition of the front along which we must pass for eighty miles
is as follows: the battle of the Aisne has now turned into a race for
the coast; each army is trying to outflank the other, the Germans,
according to present indications, getting much the better of the
contest. Everyone's attention seems to be concentrated for the moment
on Calais, and the Allies evidently feel that the chief danger point
is there. I notice with special concern, however, that farther south
the German army is at Bethune thrusting out a wedge toward Abbeville,
on the coast, only thirty-eight miles away. If they can advance these
thirty-eight miles they will win not only all the triangle containing
Nieuport, Calais, and Boulogne, but will cut off such of the Allied
armies as are now concentrated in this area, and also radically
shorten their own lines. Their front, as it now extends from Compiegne
to Holland, measures nearly two hundred miles. If reorganized from
Compiegne to the coast at Abbeville, it would be less than sixty-five
miles. Of course the Allies fully appreciate this danger and are
guarding against it as best they can, but I agree with Countess X.
that the sooner we snatch her children out of the threatened area the
better.

* * * * *

_At the Front, Tuesday, October 13th._ We left Paris last
evening at half-past six and at first made only slow progress owing
to heavy traffic, worn-out roads, and destroyed bridges. We stopped
for supper in poor, wrecked Senlis. This town is no farther from
the gates of Paris than Van Cortlandt Park in New York is from the
Battery, and yet the German armies were in Senlis in September,
battles raged in its streets, shells burst in its houses and
destroyed whole blocks. Indeed, one of the fiercest fights of the war
took place at night in its streets when, during the attack made by the
garrison of Paris upon von Kluck's army, troops were hurriedly rushed
out of Paris in trams, wagons, and taxicabs to fall pell-mell upon the