ames, our backs never felt really warm. It
was only when night had fallen and the outside shutters were firmly
closed that the thermometer suspended near the chimney-piece grudgingly
consented to record temperate heat.

[Illustration: A Lapful of Warmth]

But there was at least one snug chamber in Versailles, and that was the
room of the Red-Cross prisoners. However extravagant the degrees of
frost registered without, the boys' sick-room was always pleasantly
warm. How the good Soeur, who was on duty all day, managed to regulate
the heat throughout the night-watches was her secret. A half-waking boy
might catch a glimpse of her, apparently robed as by day, stealing out
of the room; but so noiseless were her movements, that neither of the
invalids ever saw her stealing in. They had a secret theory that in her
own little apartment, which was just beyond theirs, the Soeur, garbed,
hooded, and wearing rosary and the knotted rope of her Order, passed her
nights in devotion. Certain it was that even the most glacial of
weathers did not once avail to prevent her attending the Mass that was
held at Notre Dame each morning before daybreak.

[Illustration: The Daily Round]

Frost-flowers dulled the inner glories of the shop windows with their
unwelcome decoration. Even in the square on market mornings business
flagged. The country folks, chilled by their cold drive to town,
cowered, muffled in thick wraps, over their little charcoal stoves,
lacking energy to call attention to their wares. The sage with the
onions was absent, but the pretty girl in the red hood held her
accustomed place, warming mittened fingers at a chaufferette which she
held on her lap. The only person who gave no outward sign of misery was
the boulangere who, harnessed to her heavy hand-cart, toiled
unflinchingly on her rounds.

In the streets the comely little _bourgeoises_ hid their plump shoulders
under ugly black knitted capes, and concealed their neat hands in clumsy
worsted gloves. But despite the rigour of the atmosphere their heads,
with the hair neatly dressed _a la Chinoise_, remained uncovered. It
struck our unaccustomed eyes oddly to see these girls thus exposed,
standing on the pavement in the teeth of some icy blast, talking to
stalwart soldier friends, whose noses were their only visible feature.

[Illustration: Three Babes and a Bonne]

The ladies of Versailles give a thought to their waists, but they leave
their ankles to Providence, a