presents wrote regularly. There were at that time
over twenty thousand filleuls.

The letters received from these men of all grades must be a source of
psychologic as well as sympathetic interest to the more intelligent
marraines, for when the men live long enough they reveal much of their
native characteristics between the formalities so dear to the French.
But too many of them write but one letter, and sometimes they do not
finish that.

XVI

PROBLEMS FOR THE FUTURE

I

What the bereft mothers of France will do after this war is over and
they no longer have the mutilated sons of other mothers to nurse and
serve and work for, is a problem for themselves; but what the younger
women will do is a problem for the men.

Practically every day of the three months I spent in Passy I used one
of the three lines of tramcars that converge at La Muette (it is
almost immoral to take a taxi these days); and I often amused myself
watching the women conductors. They are quick, keen, and competent,
but, whether it was owing to the dingy black uniforms and
distressingly unbecoming Scotch military cap or not, it never did
occur to me that there would be any mad scramble for them when the men
of France once more found the leisure for love and marriage.

Grim as these women looked, however, "on their job," I often noticed
them laughing and joking when, off duty for a few moments, they rested
under the trees at the terminus. No doubt there is in them that
ineradicable love of the home so characteristic of the French race,
and as there is little beauty in their class at the best, they may
appeal more to the taste of men of that class than they did to mine.
And it may be that those who are already provided with husbands will
cheerfully renounce work in their favor and return to the hearthstone.
Perhaps, however, they will not, and wise heads of the sex which has
ruled the world so long are conferring at odd moments upon these and
other females who have taken up so many of the reins laid down by men
and driven the man-made teams with a success that could not be more
complete if they had been bred to it, and with a relish that has
grown, and shows no sign of retroaction.

[Illustration: DELIVERING THE POST]

The French women of the people, however, unlovely to look upon,
toil-worn, absorbed from childhood in petty economics, have little to
tempt men outside of the home in which they reign, so for those that
do return the p