ninety she will always be in social demand, for she is what is known
as "good company." She listens to you but you would far rather listen
to her. Unlike many women of distinguished pasts she lives in hers
very little. It is difficult to induce the reminiscent mood. She lives
intensely in the present and her mind works insatiably upon everything
in current life that is worth while.

She has no vanity. Unlike many ladies of her age and degree in Paris
she does not wear a red-brown wig, but her own abundant hair, as soft
and white as cotton and not a "gray" hair in it. She is now too much
absorbed in the war to waste time at her dressmakers or even to care
whether her placket-hole is open or not. I doubt if she ever did care
much about dress or "keeping young," for those are instincts that
sleep only in the grave. War or no war they are as much a part of the
daily habit as the morning bath. I saw abundant evidence of this
immortal fact in Paris during the second summer of the war.

Nevertheless, the moment Madame Waddington enters a room she seems to
charge it with electricity. You see no one else and you are impatient
when others insist upon talking. Vitality, an immense intelligence
without arrogance or self-conceit, a courtesy which has no relation to
diplomatic caution, a kindly tact and an unmistakable integrity,
combine to make Madame Waddington one of the most popular women in
Europe.

II

This brings me to Madame Waddington's fourth career. The war which has
lifted so many people out of obscurity, rejuvenated a few dying
talents, and given thousands their first opportunity to be useful,
simply overwhelmed Madame Waddington with hard work and a multitude of
new duties. If she had indulged in dreams of spending the rest of her
days in the peaceful paths of literature when not dining out, they
were rudely dissipated on August 1st, 1914.

Madame Waddington opened the Ouvroir Holophane on the 15th of August,
her first object being to give employment and so countercheck the
double menace of starvation and haunted idleness for at least fifty
poor women: teachers, music-mistresses, seamstresses, lace makers,
women of all ages and conditions abruptly thrown out of work.

Madame Waddington, speaking of them, said: "We had such piteous cases
of perfectly well-dressed, well-educated, gently-bred women that we
hardly dared offer them the one-franc-fifty and 'gouter' (bowl of
cafe-au-lait with bread and butter), whic