u Soldat, and stated that it was
distributing about six hundred packages a week to soldiers in
hospitals and eclope depots, and that during the month of January
alone nine thousand six hundred packages were distributed both behind
the lines and among the soldiers at the Front. This may go on for
years or it may come to an abrupt end; but, like all the Frenchwomen
to whom I talked, and who when they plunged into work expected a short
war, she is determined to do her part as long as the soldiers do
theirs, even if the war marches with the term of her natural life. She
not only has given a great amount of practical help, but has done her
share in keeping up the morale of the men, who, buoyant by nature as
they are, and passionately devoted to their country, must have many
discouraged moments in their hospitals and depots.

Once or twice when swamped with work--she is also a marraine
(godmother) and writes regularly to her filleuls--Madame Balli has
sent the weekly gifts by friends; but the protest was so decided, the
men declaring that her personal sympathy meant more to them than
cigarettes and soap, that she was forced to adjust her affairs in such
a manner that no visit to a hospital at least should be missed.

It is doubtful if any of these men who survive and live to tell tales
of the Great War in their old age will ever omit to recall the
gracious presence and lovely face of Madame Balli, who came so often
to make them forget the sad monotony of their lives, even the pain in
their mutilated limbs, the agony behind their disfigured faces, during
those long months they spent in the hospitals of Paris. And although
her beauty has always been a pleasure to the eye, perhaps it is now
for the first time paying its great debt to Nature.

II

THE SILENT ARMY

I

Madame Paquin, the famous French dressmaker, told me casually an
incident that epitomizes the mental inheritance of the women of a
military nation once more plunged abruptly into war.

Her home is in Neuilly, one of the beautiful suburbs of Paris, and for
years when awake early in the morning it had been her habit to listen
for the heavy creaking of the great wagons that passed her house on
their way from the gardens and orchards of the open country to the
markets of Paris. Sometimes she would arise and look at them, those
immense heavy trucks loaded high above their walls with the luscious
produce of the fertile soil of France. On the seats were alw