of
America might as well prepare to black the boots of Germany.

When this war is over it is to be hoped that all the censors will be
taken out and hanged. In view of the magnificent account of itself
which Kitchener's Army has given since that miserable day, to say
nothing of the fashion in which the British Navy lived up to its best
traditions in that Battle of Jutland, it seems nothing short of
criminal that the English censor should have permitted the world to
hold Great Britain in contempt for twenty-four hours and sink poor
France in the slough of despond. However, he is used to abuse, and
presumably does not mind it.

On the following day he condescended to release the truth. We all
breathed again, and I kept one of my interesting engagements with
Madame Pierre Goujon.

II

This beautiful young woman's husband was killed during the first month
of the war. Her brother was reported missing at about the same time,
and although his wife has refused to go into mourning there is little
hope that he will ever be seen alive again or that his body will be
found. There was no room for doubt in the case of Pierre Goujon.

Perhaps if the young officer had died in the natural course of events
his widow would have been overwhelmed by her loss, although it is
difficult to imagine Madame Goujon a useless member of society at any
time. Her brilliant black eyes and her eager nervous little face
connote a mind as alert as Monsieur Reinach's. As it was, she closed
her own home--she has no children--returned to the great hotel of her
father in the Parc Monceau, and plunged into work.

It is doubtful if at any period of the world's history men have failed
to accept (or demand) the services of women in time of war, and this
is particularly true of France, where women have always counted as
units more than in any European state. Whether men have heretofore
accepted these invaluable services with gratitude or as a
matter-of-course is by the way. Never before in the world's history
have fighting nations availed themselves of woman's co-operation in as
wholesale a fashion as now; and perhaps it is the women who feel the
gratitude.

Of course the first duty of every Frenchwoman in those distracted days
of August, 1914, was, as I have mentioned before, to feed the poor
women so suddenly thrown out of work or left penniless with large
families of children. Then came the refugees pouring down from Belgium
and the invaded district