their little
accomplishments and earned a bare living. One daughter of an avocat,
who had just managed to keep and educate his large family and was
promptly mobilized, left the Beaux Arts where she had studied for
several years, and after some floundering turned her knowledge of
designing to the practical art of dress. She goes from house to house
designing and cutting out gowns for women no longer able to afford
dressmakers but still anxious to please. She hopes in time to be
employed in one of the great dressmakers' establishments, having
renounced all thought of being an artist in a more grandiose sense.
Meanwhile she keeps the family from starving while her mother and
sisters do the housework. Her brothers are in the military colleges
and will be called out in due course if the war continues long enough
to absorb all the youth of France.

Mlle. E., the woman who told me her story, was suffering from the
effects of the war herself. I climbed five flights to talk to her, and
found her in a pleasant little apartment looking out over the roofs
and trees of Passy. Formerly she had taken a certain number of
American girls to board and finish off in the politest tongue in
Europe. The few American girls in Paris to-day (barring the
anachronisms that paint and plume for the Ritz Hotel) are working with
the American Ambulance, the American Fund for French Wounded, or Le
Bien-Etre du Blesse, and she sits in her high flat alone.

But she too has adapted herself, and kept her little home. She
illuminates for a Bible house, and paints exquisite Christmas and
Easter cards. Of course she had saved something, for she was the
frugal type and restaurants and the cabaret could have no call for
her.

But alas! said she, there were the taxes, and ever more taxes. And who
could say how long the war would last? I cheerfully suggested that we
might have entered upon one of those war cycles so familiar in history
and that the world might not know peace again for thirty years.
Although the French are very optimistic about the duration of this war
(and, no doubt prompted by hope, I am myself) she agreed with me, and
reiterated that one must not relax effort for a moment.

Of course she has her filleul (godson) at the Front, a poor poilu who
has no family; and when he goes out the captain finds her another. She
knits him socks and vests, and sends him such little luxuries as he
asks for, always tobacco, and often chocolate.

The French