INSPIRED by patriotism, hysteria and a goodish bit of vin ordinaire, Ronique, Maris and I have offered our services to France and she, short-sighted nation that she is, has accepted them. In a minor capacity to be sure but nevertheless . . . Tomorrow at dawn or thereabouts three earnest young women will don the sanctified coverall of the Clinic St. Vincente and begin the duty expected of every strong-hearted Briton, though the three Britons in question would in time of peace spit well in the eye of any and all suggesting such blood ran in their veins.

The womb of the world had scarce been freed of the infant war when we began presenting ourselves at various and odd places where we thought our services would be acceptable. The more intelligent of such institutions would have nothing to do with me though they cast a favourable enough eye on Ronique and Maris, lusty women that they are. I wonder why at my advanced age I appear but a child recently out of diapers. My lack of girth and inches embarrasses me for, do I become a bit drunken or rowdy, sorrow appears in the eyes of beholders that such a youngling would be thus depraved.

Had I the wit to set down events in order of their happening my posterity would mark their grandame a wondrous clever woman. But doubtless, as always, I shall filch a thread from here and a thread from there and knot them into snarls and never, never weave a smooth tale at all. Would that I had learned to follow the pattern Edward set. I do wonder if he still keeps a journal and if my name sullies its fair pages.

The Clinic St. Vincente is a registered government hospital but it would take considerable imagination to visualize it as a harbour for heroes. If Ronique, Maris and I are able to complete a quarter-year course of instruction as nurses' aides we may use such instruction as a leverage to spring us into wards of handsome soldati yearning for the soft touch of women's fingers no doubt.

We are now installed in three rooms near the clinic. The rooms open one into the other like a trick box. To reach the last room of the string one must pass through the first two and to reach the second one must pass through the first. As I am a delicate-minded young woman I offered to pay more than my shot for the privilege of having the last room. There were mumblings and dissents until I suggested we settle the affair with a tossed franc. I won two out of three tosses and have therefore, without payment of more siller, the room I wanted in the first place. My room is on the corner and I have a view of the river and also the fine stink of rotted vegetables from the Halles.

Ronique reluctantly dwells in the first box, Maris in the second and I haughtily in the third. The rooms are not too badly furnished and are kept spotless by Madame, a hardy femme who sports a really well-grown moustache and chin beard. She is most grateful to Pro Patrie for immediately calling her spouse to the colours and thereby relieving her of the necessity of supporting him. In all other things she is dour and complaining and I have christened her Sairey Gamp.

This was the second day of my duty at the clinic and a very annoying one it was. The principal affliction came at midafternoon when a boy brought a letter sent on to me by Sairey Gamp. It had come from our former lodgings and when I read it I found that Kate Melody and Ann Conner were at the Continental and wanted me to come in a great hurry. I did not dare do so for at the very moment the letter was given me word had come that the Reverend Mother wanted a bit of our time. We went into her sanctuary and she began a long discourse on the subject of our duties to the holy poor and as she does not regard me with a too favourable eye I could not cut and run though I well knew Kate Melody would have no fancy at all for cooling her heels until I came to her.

The moment we were home from the clinic we dashed into proper clothing and dashed again to the Continental. I thought that perhaps the presence of Ronique and Maris would keep Kate Melody's hot tongue from me when she found out my present occupation. It did not. In sulphurous words she bade me give over my nonsense and make myself ready to go along home with them. Strangely it was Ann Conner who came to my tongue-tied rescue and bade Kate to mind her own affairs and leave mine to me. She did so. We had a merry evening. Tomorrow they go home and I may not see them off for I must tend the bonhommes at St Vincente of the holy poor and may the devil fly away with the lot of them.

The heaviest delft and the heaviest servers in the whole world are in the Clinic St. Vincente and I've borne a thousand pounds of such in my three days' duty. My legs ache, my shoulders ache and my back aches. I do not know how Maris and Ronique manage their sporting about. They have again sallied forth brightly clad for a gala. I wonder where they find the heart and strength for such. When my day is done I want nothing more than to creep home and have Sairey Gamp bring a hot tub and soak me in it, and afterward rub me all over with my finest perfume. In no other manner can I be freed of the stink of St. Vincente.

Why all poor should be considered of marked holiness I do not know. I but mouth the words of the gentle nuns of St. Vincente and some of them are not so damned gentle at that. Personally I'd well wager many of my patients are direct from the devil; their odour is more likely of brimstone than of sanctity. At present my duties are those of a pot-boy but shortly I'll have the dubious privilege of washing poor old bodies. It will be in the nature of a promotion and I should appreciate it no doubt. I look forward to such thing with no pleasure. I've reached my present age without viewing a naked male and I would rather my first view be of other than a diseased and aged person.

I had a joint letter today from Ernest and Laure sent on from Rivenoak. I'm so glad of their happiness. Jacob---I think it was Jacob---served seven years for his Rachel but Ernest served longer than that for his Laure. I wonder if Edward would wait as many years for me. I'll not do such. I'll find me a lad who'll have the proper appreciation for my charms. Well, tomorrow is another day.

When we are not needed by the old lads we sit in the middle of a rag bag and sew a whole sheet out of a half-dozen torn ones. We make face cloths out of worn hose and hand towels out of bathing towels, and while we so labour a gentle nun sits on a high stool and reads to us of the indulgence gained for us by our labours among the holy poor. Some day I shall burst out with a loud "Baloney" as they say in the States to an incredible tale.

My duties begin at six in the forenoon and continue until eighteen o'clock. It takes every pennyworth of courage I have to stick to the job, for my proclivity for puking under stress has never left me.

On my way home I stop at the pâtisserie and fetch a packet of sweets to end my dinner. I share them with Sairey Gamp who broils me a chop and argues with me regarding the brewing of coffee. The gentleman who has the pâtisserie is deep in love with me. He has but one leg but nevertheless rolls a licentious eye in my direction and I do likewise, scandalous woman that I am. On Sunday he sits fine and neat before his shop dressed in the regimentals of the Franco-Prussian War. I do not see how he can be that old but he assures me he is a veteran and he further assures me the war made an atheist out of him. Dreadful! Still his sweets are as fine in taste as if he were a Christian and a believer.

Tonight the sun went down in a great ball of fire beyond the river and made my windows amber and delightful. I do wonder if ever I'll survive the quarter-year at the Clinic St. Vincente. It is dreadfully boring. Ronique's duties are more interesting for she assists with brewing medicines, mixing emollients and so on. Maris waits on the ladies and says they are holy terrors.

We really hear little of the war. Now and again Ronique and Maris pick up a bit from their various swains. What women they are! There are few evenings that do not find them skylarking about and in the morning they vault from bed, dress, bolt their chocolate and overtake me on the way to the clinic fresh as daisies.

I wonder if the war will bring Edward to France. I know it will bring Malcolm. It would be most comical if Malcolm, Catherine, Laure, Ernest, Edward and I all met here in Paris. Surely Edward could not withstand five of us.

The night is lovely. It does seem a shame to waste such in sleep.

Tonight for a great wonder Ronique and Maris are at home. With Sairey Gamp's willing help we made a feast. We had a great talk afterward and spent the evening pleasantly. Now they are tucked into their beds but I linger on clean and smelling heavenly. I can look out and see armbound Pierrots and Pierrettes promenading the river banks. I wish to God I had a fond lad of my own to promenade with me, Edward for preference. To behold the lovers one would never in the world think a fine lusty war was squalling just around the corner.

In a manner of speaking I have been promoted though not of my own will. I have given over my labours of washing delft and taken to washing upper and lower extremities of the holy poor. I also serve bed-commodes, comb beards and hair, trim toe and fingernails and am not altogether above scratching an itching back. The heartiest old lad in the corridor has the bed next to the bell pull and it is his duty to ring such bell when help is needed. One bell means one thing and two another but three strokes means a fight and we all run to do what we can about it. If I had my way there would be nothing at all done for the old lads love a fight. None of them has enough strength to do any harm and it gives them something to chat about.

Ronique is no end pleased because France has declared war on Austria, for no better reason than that a lad from the embassy of that country sought to rape her in an open cab. I think it was the lack of privacy that annoyed her. Since then she has had great hatred of Austria and considers it something of a personal accomplishment that the allied nations are to give battle to her.

This is my free day. I am cleaned and decked in my finest and I'm going off with a swain who will take me motoring into the country. Perchance he will hold my hand and whisper sweet nothings into my ear. I could do with a bit of such after my labours with the bonhommes. I have Sairey Gamp posted at the door below and at sight of the swain I've bidden her to step into the street and wave her apron. I do not want the gentleman to come above seeking me for he would have to traipse through the rooms in which Ronique and Maris still sleep sweetly. They have neither stirred themselves forth to Mass, to their duties at the clinic nor even opened an eye long enough to eat breakfast. If I did such thing I'd be cast out on my somewhat large ear but Ronique and Maris are lusty and therefore valuable women and will doubtless be able to get away with their mischief.

Sairey Gamp waves an apron and steps into the doorway to hold my swain at bay if he seeks to gain entrance by force. I'll don my hat and go forth praying I'll return still a virgin.

For well over a fortnight I have set down little for I've had Ronique and Maris with me nightly. They have abstained from gallivanting and we have been quiet together.

Yesterday however we decided we were living a bit too much like the nuns of St. Vincente and it would be well to treat ourselves to at least one gala.

Having no telephone nearer we hied ourselves to the pâtisserie and asked the loan of such instrument from Monsieur of the one leg. Ronique took over and rang through to one chap and another chap and found to her astonishment that in the short days of her abstention all had taken to their bosom Madame La Guerre and had gone with such mistress to far-away places. Maris had no better luck and I, being shy with French telephones, was about to request assignation of Monsieur of the one leg when Ronique had another thought and rang through to the American bar. She asked simply if there were any gentlemen of that nation hanging about. It was an altogether comic thing for though Ronique has no French blood as far as I know she speaks, gestures and even thinks like a Frenchwoman. Holding the receiver with one hand she waved the other about and when the waving hand was weary she changed over to the other. Utterly spent she concluded her telephone conversation to tell us that she had talked with three men she never in her life before heard of and then had the good fortune to have them include in the group a man she did know. She convinced him she was all of the time seeking him. He promised to round up two other gentlemen and meet us immediately at the Ritz.

We met them as arranged and though all sought to make the gala a success it fell far short. Even dancing added little to the enjoyment but the lads were undaunted and made engagement for tonight which is Sunday. We now await them modishly clad. The weather is most unseasonably hot.

I fear Almighty God never intended me for attendance on the sick. Each time I must lift the cover from my dreadful bucket and behold the noisome things therein I have all in the world I can do to keep my stomach content in its proper place. Nevertheless, except I'm cast forth neck and crop, I'll stick to the Clinic St. Vincente to the bitter end. Twice the Very Reverend Mother has backed me into corners and intimated that my room in the corridor was needed more than my poor services. Intimating will get her nowhere at all. Either she'll come out flat-footed with dismissal or I'll remain if only in loyalty to Ronique and Maris, for if I go it is more than likely they will come also and their labours in the damn place will go for naught. If they are to continue nursing they needs must begin all over again.

Sairey Gamp signals the approach of our swains. She appears so smug I have no doubt she thinks something nasty is going forward. Until recently she has had little approval to spare for us, thinking us over virtuous and therefore uninteresting young women no doubt.

I am almost certain that some day the doctors' ten o'clock visit will turn into a revue with the doctors breaking into a ballad and the nuns joining the aides in a nimble-footed chorus. As it is now, doctors, nurses and aides advance toward the corridor door which the porter throws open for them. After this we pace smartly within and just beyond the portal the four medical gents pause, bow dashingly and two of them remain immobile whilst the other two step off briskly arms a-swing, aides and sisters pattering after them. At the corridor's end the medical gentlemen again face one another, bow again and, turning to their confreres at the far end, bow again to them also. The last bow is the touchstone that sets us to our labours. After the case history is read and the patient is examined something in the nature of an oratorio begins. The doctor's beard opens---they all have beards---and a basso profundo issues from it. The nursing sister replies in a mumbling coloratura and the patient's weak treble gets in a passage how and when it can. The morning ends with the doctors, beards and coat-tails, going off with as much pomp as on arrival.

I have this night an entirely grand swain, a British lad who was a schoolmate of Edward's in the long-ago days at Sandhurst. His name is Charles McCallum and he is called Toppy. I met him on the street this very day and came very near to throwing my arms about his neck, but being a modest young woman refrained from such act. He is bringing two swains along for Ronique and Maris and we are a-twitter. We will go forth and make a grand gala for ourselves and maybe have hell raised tomorrow if we happen to be late at the Clinic St. Vincente. Ronique and Maris are sitting carefully lest they mess their elegance.

Ronique says it is very strange that I have so much to write in my book because nothing important ever happens to her. Well, to me either.

My stablemates now hold me in high regard. When I produce gentlemen I produce gentlemen. We had three fine merry men to beau us last evening. None of the three had ever set foot in Paris before and their papas and mammas have fair scared the hell out of them with warnings against the ill deeds done to innocent young gentlemen in gay Paree. I felt I really should do something amiss to them if only to save their papas and mammas from being dubbed liars by their offspring. We dined and danced, we supped and danced, we flirted, we held hands discreetly under the table cloth. I trust I held the proper hand but I expect it really made little difference.

We had an open cab the evening long and the cocher was charmed with us and gave us advice he thought would be to our benefit no doubt. He drove us about shouting the Marseillaise and also a naughty song regarding the virtues arid morals of his horse. I do not believe the lads understood although they assured us they had been chosen for their labours with the War Ministry because of their knowledge of the French language. I regret to say that during the naughty song Ronique set up a tittering which we tried to ignore though I did catch her particular swain casting odd looks upon her.

We came late to our beds and were late to the clinic though our misdeed was not discovered. All the morning I gaped and gaped until my bonhommes asked what I did with my nights. When I declared I slept quietly in my bed they leered at me to a man.

I wonder if ever there was a drunkard among the Melodys. Not a tippler, mind you, but an out-and-outer soaked in his liquor as meat is in brine. I am afraid I am about to become such. I have no doubt that shortly I shall be a bona-fide roistering hussy staggering about the Paris streets. I've made a good beginning. Quite by accident I have found that a stiff brandy quaffed before I set out with dangling bucket renders me immune to noisome odors and dreadful sights and I can waft through my morning rounds with no squeamishness at all. The question is, how long can I keep such nefarious acts from discovery? Already I've been caught red-handed. As I tilted flagon to gullet two nuns rounded the corner and came upon me so. Their horror was a dreadful thing to behold but I blithely explained that I had malaise and hinted that the curse of all womanhood was upon me. Thus it was they condoned my misdeed. I thought there were wistful eyes cast at my flagon as I tucked it back into its hideaway. I think I'll find another place for it. It would be a dreadful thing did I place temptation in the way of the sanctified.

I like my duties with the holy poor no better than ever I did. I've gained little knowledge in the care of the sick but a fair amount of information regarding the construction and functioning of the male body, and I find such very odd indeed. I wasted a good deal of sympathy on the first bonhomme I saw stripped for I thought the purple-veined protuberance was a dreadful noxious growth. Perhaps for him it might be so classified for according to his history the old lad has well passed his ninetieth birthday. It is odd to consider that I have never in my life beheld a naked male. I who was raised among boys.

Today's post brought another long letter from Kate Melody who continues to be disturbed about me. The best news in the world was in the letter. Blackstone is again opened and again Catherine and her children dwell there. I wish I had seven-league boots to step over the Channel and behold them all. I knew nothing in high heaven or low hell would keep Malcolm from his own country in time of stress. Anyhow it was time the children saw Ireland.

I'm hanging onto the clinic by an eyebrow and it is not a strong eyebrow at that. Once more the Reverend Mother has implied that if I'd get to hell out of there she would be greatly pleased. She seems to rest on the horns of the well-known dilemma for a charity hospice does not find aides easily and Ronique and Maris have a flair for nursing and are of value to the place. To the Reverend Mother's dismay we are Athos, Porthos and Aramis in person. If I am there, so will the others be. If I'm not, they are not. One for all and all for one. The Lord knows I put everything I've got into my dreadful duties but there is something about the place that freezes what intelligence I have and makes me wrathy at the old lads for getting themselves in such ill condition.

It has been a tiresome day. It's lucky for you, book, you have nothing in the world to do but sleep the day long in your cubby but I must wake early and go forth to wash the behinds of dirty old men.

Last evening our swains came and brought three more on the chance that we would know three young women who, like ourselves, were pure and not given over to the vices of rape and seduction. Maybe we knew such damsels before war began but there is at the moment no one we could with free conscience recommend. War loosens the thralls about young women no doubt.

We crowded our nine bodies into one motor car and went along to a place which I had not before come upon but which seemed a familiar haunt of the Misses Kierly. The place hangs out over the river and is a most romantic spot, though how three young women could manage romance with six young men I do not know. We did as well as we could waltzing with first one and then the other. We attempted the American Turkey-Trot with some success. I instructed all in its intricacies for I'd learned it in California. One of the most comic things I remember of my brief sojourn with Madame of the Sacred Heart in Paris was the nun who was the dancing teacher showing us the gallop with her rosary and veil flying out behind her.

We started home earlyish singing songs unbecoming to our years and condition of life. When we came into Paris we soon left off singing for there was great commotion. The Huns had dropped bombs on the city and all was confusion.

We could find out no details so our swains took us home hastily and made off to see if they were needed. We stood at the door trying to make up our minds whether to go hunt the bombed place or to go to bed. Bed won.

It is but four hours until I make my morning bow to the bonhommes and still I cannot sleep. I feel somewhat illish and twice have tried to wake up Sairey Gamp to secure hot water. She does not respond, which is unusual. Except to market she never leaves the house. I wonder if she got in the way of a bomb or has she assignation with a lover. I think I prefer the bomb idea. Sairey is much too ugly to associate with love or lovers. I think all love making should be done only by those young and handsome.

When I came from the clinic there was a packet of photographs from Kate Melody and she could not have picked a better time to send me such cheery things. The photographs of Catherine's children are lovely. I wonder if there is a young woman in the world that wants a family as much as I do and has so little chance of getting such. I have many swains for men seem to like me better than I have reason to expect, for I'm no beauty, God knows, and there are times when I'm not sure my wits are what they should be. But among all of the swains I have yet to find one I would like to live out my life with.

Toppy McCallum knows no more of Edward than I do myself. If I could tuck my foolish pride in my pocket I could find news of him readily enough no doubt. It well might be he's wedded by this time. It would not make a difference to me. I tell myself I am not in love with the man. I just would like being friends again.

This trying day left me well wearied and deaf to the blandishments of Toppy who came and sat with me at the window coaxing me to go gallivanting with him. Ronique and Maris stepped forth with their swains but not I. Instead I left all of the doors opened that we would be properly chaperoned by Sairey Gamp and I bade her give us whatever she had of food and lay our table before my window. She did so with a knowing leer.

I scanned Toppy's shoulders and made up my mind such would be excellent to weep upon, and that in due course of the evening I would use them for such purpose. Male cloth for weeping is so much finer than a mere handkerchief. We had a good talk and I forgot all about the weeping. When the lad left he asked timidly enough for a kiss and I fair smothered him with such. Not, mind you, that I'm the least bit in love with him but a few judicious kisses now and then are heartening to a young female.

I would very much like to fall in love with Toppy. In fact I would very much like to fall in love with nearly anybody just so long as I could moon about and enjoy such thing. I think there must be something amiss with me for I have no fancy at all for philandering. I would as soon take a dose of salts as have a casual man fondle me. In many ways Toppy is very young. His fumbling marks of affection are less adept than even Joseph's who was so greatly his junior. I wonder how I would feel if I loved a man and he had to go off to battle. I'd die of the fidgets no doubt.

Every day Toppy sends me a packet of flowers which pleases Sairey Gamp no end for she inherits the day-before flowers. My space is too small to accommodate more than one bouquet at a time. It makes me feel romantic no end. None of my other swains is as devoted as Toppy.

A telegram came through from Kate Melody who orders me to come home at once unless I'm killed entirely. I will not go and leave my innocent Toppy fair prey for the harpies of Paris. There's no knowing what might happen to him. It well might be his papa's and mamma's prophecy would come true.

I had a letter also from dear Catherine. Malcolm has a berth at the War Ministry but is not content to bide there. He wants to get himself into the thick of the war. Men are a queer lot. Malcolm, with a lovely wife and three children and another child on the way, is loath to stay in a place where he can both serve his country and also be safe.

I am well hidden at the Continental Hotel. It was the first place I thought of and the one least liable to be invaded by the Misses Kierly of whom I want no sight until they have a better heart for me. If they quit the clinic now they will lose credit for the time spent, and if they do not they must bow meek heads before the Reverend Mother and recant the declaration of "One for all and all for one" that we have thrust down her sanctified gullet ever since we entered the portals of the Clinic St. Vincente. It will go hard on them and harder on me if ever they cross my path.

I'd better begin at the beginning. The axe has fallen and Maggie-Owen is no longer nursing aide at the Clinic St. Vincente. My sin was discovered. The brandy I quaffed on a fine morning was deeper than intended and I committed sundry acts not in keeping with the staidness of the institution.

I met the doctors as usual and swung in behind the sisters as usual. But once in the ward I went completely tiddely and thrust myself between the promenading gentlemen. I grasped an arm of each and paced them smartly, swinging my elbows even as they swung their elbows. Furthermore I sang blithe songs and stepped blithe dances using my bucket as a partner. With profane fingers I tweaked the beard of Dr. Sniff and forcibly introduced Dr. Snoff into the measures of the can-can. I then pirouetted, schottisched, toe-danced and indulged in other terpsichorean gyrations most unbecoming to my sanctified garments. The brandy but gave me courage for I've had a desire to shatter the decorum of the medical gentlemen since ever I laid my eyes on them. Therefore I say with whoever said it first, "in vino veritas." At any rate I gave the bonhommes matter for conversation for the remainder of their lives.

When first I began anticking it was thought I was malaise and my untoward acts but the functioning of a fevered brain. A thermometer was thrust beneath my tongue but as my mouth opened brandied breath rushed out and my infamy was discovered. Dr. Snoff sought to restore order to his silken beard and dismissed me with torrential tongue from the services to the holy poor. At the same time he tried to soften the blow by suggesting assignation with me. I do wonder why lady drunkards are always thought to be strumpets as well. Can't a woman like a swig now and again without wanting to break other of the commandments?

When my misdeed leaked out the poor old lads set up a dreadful clamour and some of the dear sisters put forth timid excuses for me but nevertheless I was cast neck and crop into the outer darkness. The gentleman whose beard I tweaked had great power and his word was law. Meekly I bowed my head to his will and gathered together my small possessions and said good-bye to the bonhommes. Fortunately both Ronique and Maris were engaged elsewhere and knew nothing of the affair until I was well away. I went quickly home to Sairey Gamp and she helped me pack bags and boxes and sent me off with good will for I gave her a ten-franc note to hurry. Now I'm free as a blackbird and shut of the damned place and what will I do next? Go home no doubt.

SCHOOL books describe the French as a nation of people given to light wines and dancing. I wonder why they did not add mirrors also. Never have I known such profusion of mirrors as exists in France, particularly Paris. Lodgings inhabited by me always abound in them and at the moment I could do well without such for I'm clad in what I think is the most ill-fitting uniform of all the allied forces.

After I tucked in at the Continental I sent off wires to both Kate Melody and Toppy McCallum telling them of my change of address. I then sought Marthe's for my gala clothing, garments which would bear neither odours of sanctity nor of vegetables. I found Marthe hidden behind the sort of desk that would take nonsense from no one. She was busy organizing an ambulance unit under the patronage of one Lady Turner of London, England, a person of much patriotism and quite startling amounts of siller. As few motor ambulances are now available and still fewer volunteer chauffeurs the task was somewhat complicated.

I dragged Marthe from her labours to lunch at Couveuse and found many waiting for tables, including two staunch Britons I had never laid eyes on before. We smiled and grimaced and shortly I was introducing them to Marthe as lifelong friends. As I had no notion of their names I made up fancy ones for them and we lunched with them. One lad was from Devon and another from York and they spent the time pleasantly insulting one another regarding the demerits of their respective shires, thereby mystifying Marthe who is not greatly endowed with humour. They are at the war office here and chaffing at the bit to be off and away to battle. At the end of the luncheon I had begun to have a bit of the yoikes-and-away feeling myself.

I'm restless. In fact I think I have been restless ever since the war began. I was never well pleased at the clinic. I suppose old lads must be looked after but it seemed a footling thing to do with all of the real work in the world. Maybe I need a husband. Seemingly thousands and thousands of men, uniformed and forlorn, wander the streets and sit in cafés. Where they find time to conduct the war I do not know. Maybe a wife would give point to their existence.

I began to set down the reason for my own uniform and digressed until now it is time for me to don a gown that "will knock the gentleman speechless" and Toppy and I shall go forth to dine and dance and forget La Guerre, St. Vincente of the holy poor and other annoying matters.

Unless the clocks be mad I've slept until nearly midday. There was no five-o'clock call from Sairey Gamp to consider so I spent the night racketing about. I drank more than was good for my soul, danced, flirted, shouted Vive la France, and at intervals arose in this café and that café to sing, wholly out of tune, and with others as silly as myself, "Allons, enfants de la patrie," and so on.

It's fine to lie soft and late with no Sairey Gamp to wake me up before daylight. I'll gala again this night with a chap I met last evening. I never saw him in life before and he's slightly on the middle-age side but he knows Malcolm. Besides, he is handsome and devoted so why wouldn't I fare forth with him? If Toppy finds me out he'll cut my throat no doubt.

Never have I set down the reason for the brave uniform. Suddenly Marthe remembered I could drive a motor car and almost before I could draw breath I was the possessor of a rattle-trap vehicle and a uniform built on the lines of William Doubty, the largest man ever known in West Ireland. Why in heaven's name I could not go about my duties in my usual clothing or until I could have proper garb made I do not know. Maybe it is a military secret. I was given the smallest uniform to be had, yet I must tuck the pantaloons into my arm pits and secure them with clasp pins. The seat droops crazily to the coat edge and the coat edge knocks my shanks well below the knee. No one would be the wiser if I left off the pantaloons altogether but it would be a chancy thing to go bare-bottomed whilst Paris is so filled with the military. My collar protrudes far beyond the Adam's apple I do not possess and altogether I'm as ill appearing a person as the eye could rest on. Never, never do I leave the driving seat if such can be avoided.

At the moment the unit is but embryonic. We have a single ambulance, two motor cars and a carrier. There are four young gentlemen, all Americans, and myself. I being the only woman, and clever-handed about the motor, am much made of.

I have neither seen nor heard of Ronique or Maris since I left St. Vincente, which is somewhat astonishing. I thought they were fond of me. I had no notion their anger would last and I am fairly well piqued.

I have left the Hotel Continentale and now lodge in a once palatial home where lodge also the young men from the States. It was through them I heard of the place. I wonder what in the States conditions its people to a devil-may-care attitude toward life. Nothing is serious or sacred to them. Regardless of this fact a woman may bide with them the whole twenty-four hours of the day and amorous arrangements, or lack of them, is entirely of her choosing. Their idea of a love passage seems to be to shout at room's length, "Hey, sister! How about a li'l kiss?" There are also two English girls and a Scots woman lodging here and for some strange reason the last mentioned seems to hate sight of me. If I cross her path she snarls at me no end.

I am now charioteer par excellence and sport a uniform paid for with my own siller. The unit bears the blessings of both England and France. It is fully organized and stable with orders, disciplinary measures and so on. To be sure a few pay heed to such, but there they are for those who have a fancy for them.

I have small liking for the habiliments of the male and find myself ill at ease in pantaloons which button on the side and are decidedly chancy for a lady's toilet purposes. Both jacket and pantaloons are a fair brown in colour and most becoming to me, who should not set such things down. What will my grandchildren think of their grandame's vanity?

So far the tasks given us are on the silly side, vanning supplies, bearing messages and training new members for the unit.

Many of the newcomers are decidedly inept at the business and I, being a veteran, contribute a goodish bit of unasked-for advice. To my astonishment I am taken seriously and am even consulted at times. I do like being considered important.

Toppy is kept at his tasks this night and I have no taste for my aged swain at the moment thought I like him very much usually. Madame sent up an omelette and I stayed at home with a packet of letters to read. Kate wants me at home and Catherine wants me at home and Malcolm wants me at home also. Had I the sense of a magpie I'd go off instanter. I do not know what in the world keeps me here. Maybe it's the Lord's will and he has work for me to do.

By this time Malcolm is in France but I have no notion where. It's odd that all of the real business of war I hear either from home or read in British news prints. Of course there was little of war spoken at the clinic.

Today Marthe brought me a note addressed to me in her care. It was from Ronique and Maris and all is forgiven. Some day soon I shall pleasure them and the old lads also with a sight of me in my chic pantaloons. I do wonder what the Reverend Mother will think of me in such garments. I have had a most uneasy feeling since I left Ronique and Maris and was very glad to receive the note. There isn't a soul I know well about me except Marthe and I see her seldom. I do wonder if Edward has come from India.

This night I gallivanted with an American lad from the unit. It seems impossible but his name is John Sawbuck. He vows he is an Indian and he spent the night instructing me how to shout his tribe's war-cry. I never know with the American lads if I'm being had or not. Shortly all in the Café Dome were shouting the war-cry and also stepping a war-dance. It was most comical. John vowed also he came to Paris to learn the art of drunkenness. He was just about to graduate at Drunkards' University when war was declared and interrupted his studies.

Today four young lads not of proper soldiering age have been attached to the unit. They have already done much to improve our vocabulary, if the words they use can be called an improvement. They are as mischievous as monkeys. I do like them. Several young gentlemen, having failed to establish more informal relations, are urging me to matrimony. I'm frightened lest in a moment of depression, or undue exhilaration, I wed one of them---or even two or three of them. It's odd to think somewhere in the world a lad is waiting to wed me. Maybe in Australia or in South America or the States, or maybe he's just about the corner. It well might be a chap I've never beheld or whose name I've never heard, yet one day I shall wed him and keep his house and bear his children and make him laugh. Always I'll make him laugh---it's the touchstone of matrimony.

The war seems to be gathering in. There is much more of news than at the beginning of it. It's common gossip that the Hawk has been sunk and that the Huns are prospering since ever they took Ostend. Actually the French Government had gone to Bordeaux a whole month before ever I knew of it. Like the Arabs they silently folded their tents and went somewhere else. You can't get a word from any of the lads at the war office. To judge by their conversation one would really think they were sent to Paris for a holiday.

The cadets are adding joy to our lives. I was told to take a vanload of toilet tissue from warehouse to hospital. As the carriers were all in use I needs must take my old ambulance and two of the cadets to assist with the loading and so on. We had fifty cartons of tissue and I told the lads to stand in the rear of the ambulance and see that none of the cartons was lost. So with the lads clinging to the retaining bar we set off for the hospital at a smart clip. After a bit of time I became aware that the populace was paying a great deal of attention to me and my ambulance. I was mightily pleased to have such open recognition of the excellence of my driving. I weaved in and out of traffic with dexterity and when the stares were supplemented with huzzas I thrust out my chest and grimaced and bowed like royalty itself.

When I arrived at our destination my vanity was given a shock for I found the lads had broken open a carton of the tissue, strung roll after roll on the retaining bars and flung the rolls' ends to the breeze. The tissue floating out behind us must have made a gala appearance. I haven't an idea what the populace thought we were but then it doesn't take a great deal to set the French people to huzzaing. When I went within the hospital to have my tabs signed the matron reprimanded me for permitting supplies to be wasted. Fancy that!

Last night I went on the French equivalent of pub trotting with three young ladies and some eight or nine young gentlemen. I dined with General Dale (Malcolm's friend) and his elegance became at the moment too much to bear. The Ritz was unbearable too, filled as it was with gold lace and gallant gentlemen and lovely, lovely ladies. I dragged the man forth to the American bar and thereafter began the pub trotting for I found several lads I knew slightly. At two o'clock the General, remembering he had an engagement at dawn, begged off and left me to my skylarking. I think we entered every scurvy and chancy bistro in the city of Paris. It was a vastly silly affair all around but I enjoyed it very much.

Dawnish we came upon Toppy and another staid Britisher having a sup of onion soup at the Halles. So great was the hurt in his eyes I sobered and demanded I be taken home at once. My cavalier thought such idea nonsensical and pleaded that I go to his rooms for a bit of hugging up. The spalpeen! Well, there was no harm in asking and I gave a civil refusal and the chastened young man took me home as requested. No sooner was I in my lodging when there came a knocking at the door and there was Madame herself accompanied by Toppy. Madame threw a knowing look at me and went below. Toppy came within and left the door open a crack for decency's sake. He was so overjoyed to find me at home I suspected him of thinking maybe I did do a bit of untoward languishing. In my best bed robe and boots I brewed tea and sent him forth at full dawn. I encountered the Scots woman in the passage. She shot a "I-caught-you-at-it" glance at me as she went by and I do not much blame her. But appearances are often deceptive no doubt.

Today I sent a shyly worded inquiry regarding Edward to the home office. He is ever in my mind despite the number of swains who squire me about.

Early this morning I was awakened by a great thumping at my door. It was scarcely past dawn and I thought it might well be a skylarker so I made no haste to answer. It turned out to be one of the cadets bringing a message that I was to present myself immediately at the unit. Sleep ridden and groggy I somehow got into my breeks and arrived to find great confusion. A chauffeur had failed to appear at a time designated and all hell was to pay. I'd not have been surprised if the Cabinet had been summoned from Bordeaux to deal with the miscreant. The reliable Maggie-Owen Melody was therefore told to get to hell out of there in a great hurry and meet important personages cooling their heels at the Gare St. Lazare. I was hastily thrust into the driver's seat of a grand salon car which did not at all fit me, being much too large for my short legs to contact gears, brake, petrol pedal and so on. I was bolstered forward by pillows so I could manage tippy-toed contact and thus I ventured forth.

My belly rumbled emptily all of the way to St. Lazare where I found assorted persons awaiting me with no apparent patience. There were several ladies not in the first bloom of their youth commanded by a British grenadier in skirts who was also not in the first bloom of youth. They were accompanied by two elegantly bored French officers. When I stepped up saluting smartly to ask if they were my proper passengers the F.O.'s cheered up no end and hurled themselves into the front seat of the motor car leaving the ladies to arrange themselves as best they might and to hell with the gallantry of the French male. After I had assisted in settling the eight ladies in space for six, I slipped behind the wheel and we bowled off, the two French gentlemen vying with one another for my favours. They assured me over and over again I was très charmante and asked wouldn't I breakfast, lunch, dine or spend the night with either or both of them. I decided it would be less trouble to non-parlez whereupon they subsided conversationally and contented themselves with rolling a wicked eye and playing footie. The lad on the far side had such a good reach my shins were soon well bruised with his coy kicking.

The grenadier had demanded to be taken to the Ritz and I deposited the lot on the pavement and got back into the driver's seat rolling my tongue over the breakfast I was about to eat. The Frenchies however had a different idea. They clung so tightly to the car's side I was unable to start, so smiling brightly and taking a chance they understood no English I said, "Damn you for a pair of fools, will you please let go of the door?" They seemed pleased with my fine conversation but not a bit did they let go of the door. So I opened the throttle, released the clutch, drew my foot from the brake and shot forward. That sent the lads sprawling down on the pavement and the devil scew to them.

As I turned the corner I beheld them brushing the dust off themselves under the horrified eyes of the grenadier and her ladies. I had a fine leisurely breakfast and when I got back to the unit was told off for unladylike conduct. Fancy that!

Today Toppy was ordered to his old regiment. He leaves shortly for the front and wants to wed me to keep me safe against his return. The poor dear lad! Does he think a gold ring on a finger would answer better than the iron drawers the crusaders left soldered on their ladies' bottoms? If bawdy old tales are true the ladies were got at nevertheless. I do love Toppy well but not in a marrying way. I did so hate hurting his feelings.

This was my free day, and I made my peace with Ronique and Maris. They came along to my lodging and met Toppy again and we four went forth and made a gala. We had great fun telling him he was no better than a Turk with three women all to himself. I'll have Saturday and Sunday alone with him and Sunday night will see him gone. God bless him.

The grenadier I met at St. Lazare is none other than Lady Turner herself, sponsor and financier of the whole damn works, and glory be to God doesn't she hate the sight of me! Every time she sets eye on me her brows fairly snarl aloud. I have no notion why she has such dislike for me unless she cherishes guilty love for one or both the Frenchies I left sprawling on the pavement. Whatever it is she has me written down in her black book and a hell of a lot of concern does it cause me.

Letters from Kate Melody and from Catherine brought good news. Ernest and Laure are coming again to Paris. I went straightway to Laure's house and found a great turning out going on but none there could give the exact date of her arrival. It was strange to see the servants who served Laure when I was with her. I left my address and Laure will ring through to me no doubt. I do love Laure.

For my sins the Scots woman who dwells in the same house with me has been given to me for preliminary training, and I have an idea no good will come of such thing. I do not know why in the world the woman cherishes such hatred for me.

I am grateful for real labours. Wounded soldiers are pouring into Paris and the unit is busy transporting the poor lads from train to hospital. There are now eleven ambulant units maintained here. The Turner unit is the veteran. I think the unit of Ann Morgan, the American, is second. There is great rivalry between us. We are really the better organized and equipped. There is gossip that we will be sent north to transport wounded from ambulance train to hospital.

Today came a special post from Ann Conner enclosing a letter addressed to Mrs. Ernest Kenmore. My heart stood still. I was afraid to open it. Finally I caught up courage and tore the flap. It was from Edward. He's behind on news for he seems not to know I'm no such thing as Mrs. Ernest Kenmore. I'm glad he put pride in pocket and wrote me. He is in France but does not say where beyond mentioning that his regiment is quartered near a perfume distillery. It should not be difficult to find such a combination as an Indian regiment and a perfume distillery. I decided to carry on as if there were no long breach between us and began three letters and finished none. I do not know what to write. My heart is full. I am very happy.

My presentiment regarding the Scots woman has come to pass. Despite her tormenting and teasing I have gone on with her driving instructions when and how I could manage between transporting wounded. I'm not overpatient I know and I have been really proud of the forbearance I've shown her. An end came to it however. The woman and I fell to fisticuffs and I was well licked, for she's a head taller and three stone heavier in weight. As I bent to do a bit of repairing she stole up behind me and deliberately kicked me. Consider the hurt to my dignity! Consider the hurt to my buttocks! I fell upon the woman striking, kicking and pummeling her with no holds barred. I forgot entirely I was raised a gentlewoman and remembered only that no bloody Sassenack of a dirty dissenter was going to kick me and not feel the weight of my anger.

Fortunately several saw the free attack on my person, and before one could snap fingers she was up before Marthe and short work was made of her, even before Marthe understood I was the person molested.

I have a dark eye, a scratched jaw, and a great pride that I gave such good account of myself.

We were told today that a motor fleet will be sent north shortly. And that was exactly all we were told. Not where it was to go nor how many would go along with it. I'd give a bright sovereign to be one chosen but I well know I will not. I appear as frail as a new-born moth. I'm not but I do wish I'd eaten more porridge when I was young. I'd now be a great double-breasted woman no doubt.

I finished off sixteen pages of sleazy paper in a letter to Edward and I'd well like to be in sight of him when he reads it. I gave him the news that I'm again Maggie-Owen Melody and hinted of my chaste condition. I do wish he would come to Paris. I wish Malcolm would come also and they'd make up their quarrel. I'd like that we'd all be friends together as we were long ago.

Glory be to God, I'm to be sent north. I do not know where. I've grumbled and groused and now I find I've been selected to go from the time the fleet was organized. It's a great wonder. Wherever we go we are to take supplies and remain as long as needed. We are busily overhauling motors and so on. My fancy fingernails are broken and my hands are permanently darkened. I still have a dark eye from the Scots woman's fist but I do not care. I'll be glad to be shut of Paris for a time though I well might be going into something worse.

The city grows gayer and gayer though many and many black-garbed and saddened women walk the streets. I am looking forward to the motor journey. I am, thank God, in good health. In all of my remembrance I've never been such a lusty woman as I am now.

I've had a dreadful thought. Suppose I go with the fleet and Edward comes to Paris, or Malcolm, or both. I'd die down dead.

When I came home today there was a message from Laure bidding me come at once that she might behold me. I was dirty and my hands were like those of a smith. I tossed my uniform to Madame for a brief cleansing, bathed, scrubbed and otherwise restored myself to a semblance of Maggie-Owen. My cab and Ernest's motor car arrived at the same moment and both Laure and Ernest gazed on me with blank faces. They did not know me. It was an odd feeling.

It was odd also to walk among the rose tubs and view my old room and listen to Gobble chattering as ever she chattered. Ernest kissed me more roundly than ever he did when I dwelt with him. I do love him. Never was there a kinder man, and greatly, greatly do I love Laure. What a grand romance is theirs! I am envious for I'm as bare of romance as a plucked hen is of feathers.

Ernest came here to do something regarding the British blockade of the North Sea. I did not know there was such thing. Malcolm is in Bordeaux.

I dined with them and the same butler wore the same maroon coat no doubt, and I had the same impulse to flick the bright buttons on the tail. I was much admired and my tunic also though none thought well of my pantaloons. Nor could I convince them of the value of my labours until I mentioned my oncoming trek to the front. They were impressed with that. I owe many things to Laure and Ernest including my skill with motor cars, for I learned their intricacies from the motors at Rivenoak the one holiday season I spent there. Had it not been for that time I'd not be traipsing off north laden with surgical gauze and toilet tissue no doubt.

Today I have put my house in order. Tomorrow we leave on our momentous journey. I have had no answer to my letter to Edward so have sent off a second telling him not to dare come to Paris whilst I'm away. I sent another such to Malcolm, and Ernest promises if either comes he will at once set the gendarmes on them and drive them forth. Laure and Ernest sent me an enormous box of sweets which I shall carry along with me. I have a new book also for my recordings and several combined vest-and-drawers woollies. I'm all set. Maris and Ronique are eaten with envy.

THIS day I sit for the first time at the Café Chardonneret wishing to God someone I knew would come through the door and wishing also that the chair I sit on had a softer seat. My bones at the moment are too near my skin for comfort. It is long since I've set down the happenings of my life. I have been ill and though I now walk about it is on fluid legs and I view a world wavering and shadowed.

I have been in this town forty-three days. The first fortnight I laboured steadily and then a bug selected my lung for ambitious housekeeping. It wed and begat a family and caused me no end of trouble. I'm so well past it now I await orders to return to Paris though still unfit for duty with the unit, which has been sent further north. Unfortunately there are no trains coming to or going from this town or I would have been off long ago, orders or no orders.

The two medical gentlemen who looked after me are vying for my favours, which is an excellent portent as to my state of health for surely no gentleman would want to go to bed with a lady that might well be a corpse when she got up. Until I'm released from sick furlough I must bide at the hospital or here with Madame and I vastly prefer the latter. Madame dotes on me and has fed me so much good broth the cocks and hens have taken to flinging dark glances at me. My medical swains steal loaf sugar, butter, tea and white bread from the hospital stores and present them to me. I'm mending fast, and my state of health is beyond what the medics expected of me.

I rise late and retire early and waste good candlelight reading dreadful French tales. They are all conglomerations of rapes, seductions and murders with perversions, and a little incest included for good measure. There is nothing else to read and it may improve my French. I do not wonder that such things happened in ancient days for there was little else in the manner of amusement.

Paris at last!

The trains continued to be absent but my British medical swain wrangled leave, I think for the specific purpose of seducing, raping, or otherwise possessing the small Irish woman whom he had physicked, cosseted and almost raised from the dead. Not quite daring to accomplish such fell design under the very nose of his superiors he obtained the mentioned leave and we set off for Paris lickety-split, the small woman tucked into his arms beneath the car blankets.

Such arrangement seemed to delight our soldier driver who now and again turned his head that he might better observe the functioning of romance and on such occasions ran us into the ditch on one or the other side of the road. However the romance came to nothing for I quarrelled violently with the medical gentleman regarding the States as a nation and a people and at the journey's end we parted most correctly. I well knew that in his heart he cursed himself for not permitting a person so unappreciative of his charm to perish of her fell disease. As for myself, I heartily hope he will contract a noxious infection from the first lady he favours with his embraces.

I have checked in at the unit but after one glance at me they ordered me to continue sick furlough for another fortnight or until such time as the medical gentlemen agree I am fit to return to my duties.

I had Marthe's doctor husband check me over to be on the safe side. He found little wrong with me but prescribed milk, porridge, rare beef and so on. Aside from feeling a weakness now and again I'm lusty enough. Had I sense I would go home. I have no sense so I'll stay lest Malcolm or Edward arrive and find me gone. I have checked with the war office and neither has been in Paris in my absence.

I am now installed bag and baggage in the Hotel San Saveran. I lie late abed, eat four meals a day and am vastly bored. Each day I visit the unit to see if I may return to duty but have had no luck so far.

In sheer boredom at my lack of employment I shall record an event that could as well be left unrecorded lest those coming after me will mark their grandame as a fancy old rip.

ONE day, latish in November, Maggie sat broodingly regarding the wilting blooms in the garden and wondering what in the bloody hell was going to become of her. The café door opened and what she thought to be a French soldier entered. Soldiers, French or otherwise, were no treat at all to Maggie so she got on with her brooding until the aforementioned soldier bent over her table and inquired interestedly if she were an "Amuricun." Long ago Maggie had learned how properly to deal with sauntering soldati and she was about to put such knowledge into practice when the difference between the language and uniform caught her attention and she held her fire.

The soldier noted her wry expression, no doubt, for he hastily assured her of his honest intent and produced various credentials which identified him as one James Sully, citizen of the United States, resident of the city of New York. Maggie with great hauteur intimated she had a fancy for being alone but brash James Sully bade her not to be "standoffish" and asked would she please let him stick around and hear a little English, for he was very, very fed up with what he called "Frawgs." As she was somewhat of the same turn of mind herself she sniggled and there and then a great friendship was born.

James spun a long and wonderful yarn explaining his presence in France and his uniform and though Maggie believed not a jot of his romancing it made little difference for she was bored and she and young James had much in common. They were of the same age and both were fed up with the too, too serious things of life. James begged Maggie to be a pal and call him "Jim." He said he'd been around the darn town for more than a week and he knew of a café where he could get "putty good cawfee." Though she was skeptical Maggie nevertheless strolled out with James into the waning light.

In the long shadowed room of the café they drank the "putty good cawfee" and drank the sour wine of the country and danced to the whining fiddles of old men. Perhaps with another man romance would that night have been born, but not with James Sully of the good old U.S.A. What he wanted was fun. With Maggie he invented new and weird dance steps and fitted bawdy words to old tunes. He demanded a drink to fit each letter of any chosen word, thus "ambulance" embraced the drinking of Anisette, Madeira, Brandy and so on. Considering one word meant the consumption of some nine potions, and several words were gone over in the course of the evening, the sympathy born in the wee small hours for the noble Allies was most understandable.

James and Maggie-Owen, having drunk themselves into a condition demanding action, decided that in their present status they were but mummers in the theatre of war and that it behooved them to go where they would have a speaking part. The question at the moment was how they could remove themselves from one place to another place without visible means of transportation. Unsteadily James dealt with the bill. Waveringly they gained the roadway and there paused to consider. There were four sides to the square. If Maggie would search two sides, James would search the other two for surely in the four sides there would be found a vehicle worthy of their enterprise.

At the far side of the square James came upon an unguarded car sheltered enough to work his will upon it without detection. A "view hallo" brought Maggie, and holding one another erect they conferred. Could Maggie drive a motor car? She could indeed. Did she possess such a thing as a metal hairpin? She did. Did she carry a file for fingernails? Goody, goody, she did. "O. K., babe," said James, "climb aboard and hang on." She clumb and hung. James Sully proceeded to lift the motor's bonnet and labour beneath it calling out this direction and that direction until the motor roared indignantly. James leapt agilely aboard and they were off to a fine start with none apparently in pursuit. The fact that they had purloined an official motor car of the French army made no difference to their muddled minds.

As soon as it was deemed safe to do so James took over the driving which was well indeed for all concerned insomuch as Maggie's driving was, in her condition, strictly rule o' thumb. They had no idea at all of direction and at the moment such thing did not seem important. That they were proceeding at all was sufficient. With groaning motor and steaming bonnet they went.

Cramped and shivering Maggie waked at dawn to find herself in a strange motor car huddled against the shoulder of an equally strange man and both in the middle of a strange farmyard. When fluid wit congealed she remembered something of the night's trek and frantically shook, punched and pummeled James, but the arms of Morpheus were stronger than the arms of Maggie-Owen and her efforts availed her nothing. So she pulled the car robe about her and returned to her napping, to be in her turn pummeled, shaken and punched by James who demanded who the blazes she might be and where in the hell he was. When knowledge dawned he broke into lusty laughter and the two miscreants shouted their mirth to heaven and brought the inhabitants of the farm swarming about them.

What tale James spun Maggie never knew for she could not keep pace with his galloping tongue, but his words were weighty for shortly they were ushered into the farmhouse and given a crusty loaf and cheese, and full-bodied wine which tucked up their lagging stimulation. With food and drink in their bellies they once more mounted the borrowed chariot, comforted by the thought of the nice bottle of cognac James had so providently sequestered.

They had no map nor knowledge of the terrain except a bit garnered at the farm; nevertheless they proceeded. Mile after mile rolled out behind them until they came to where the highway divided into two small roads. They tossed a franc to determine their route. A small swig of cognac made them heedless of the fact that they might well be entering enemy territory. Were not an "Amuricun" plus an Irishman able to hold their own against the Huns? Had they been spies they could have garnered a tidy bit of useful information that day for none questioned or interfered with them. But they were not spies, they were but two tipsy hell-bent young fools seeking adventure in a stolen motorcar.

They drove on through the morning and at midday came upon a small war-torn village and bought the only food the inn afforded. They ate with cocks and hens scratching the earth beyond the window as if there was no war at all in the world. Beyond the village the boom of guns gave them pause and sobered them a bit but not enough for them to abandon their nebulous quest. Out of James's experience he decided they must be somewhere in the neighborhood of ten kilometres from the guns. So, as they might as well be had for mutton as lamb, on they went. As the break and splotch of gunnery grew nearer, James decided it would be better to turn into a by-way and for an hour they bumped and crawled along what was little more than a country lane ending in a field at the base of a small wooded hill.

Dusk was beginning to close in as they halted the motor car beneath a thickness of trees. They got out and crept forward on their hands and knees to the bracken's edge. Strangely there was no sign of life in sight. Below them a road twisted through the valley much like the mark a child might make dragging a stick behind him in the dust. Directly beneath the hill where they lay a wooden bridge crossed a fair-sized stream. On the far side of the stream was another wooded space larger than the one in which they were hidden, and over all lay the dreadful silence that comes after clamour.

As they lay crouched in the bracken the guns again took up their deadly music, deafening the somewhat sobered knights-errant. The burst was targeting the bridge and the fields beyond in, what seemed at the moment, to be a purposeless shelling. Each burst showered dead leaves and trembled the bracken about them and had they been sober enough to consider a stray shell coming their way they would have scurried for better shelter.

Jim Sully suggested that since nothing could be accomplished by lying doggo in the leaves, they might run down the hill, catch the shells in their hands and hurl them back again at the Huns---if Huns they were. They discussed such a task in detail and hilariously, shouting above the noise of the guns. In the eerie light of evening Maggie was sure she could see movement in the far woods and though James cried such notion down they both concentrated their gaze upon the spot until it became certain that for once in her life Maggie-Owen was right.

Turning back to search the motor car and cursing the French government for negligence, Jim finally came upon antiquated field-glasses and though there was much amiss with them he nevertheless discerned a vehicle of some sort under the trees, and most certainly there was movement. The knights-errant were given decided pause. If there were really persons concealed in the woods, logically they could not be Huns for if so why would the Huns be shelling the road? But suppose the guns doing the shelling were allied guns and the concealed men their objects, what would that add up to? It might well be an enemy machine-gun nest but if so why would they be at the base of the hill and not at its top? There were maybes and whys by the hundreds and the more they reasoned the more puzzled and unhappy were Maggie-Owen Melody and James Sully. Again they considered. It well might be Allies needing assistance or it well might be Huns on the prowl. One way or the other it was up to them to find out.

As they pondered, full darkness fell and the shelling ceased. Under cover of the trees, without turning on the motor, they pulled, pushed and hauled at the car until the lights could be focused on the wood and the car was in position to describe a wide arc in case, to quote James, "We have to make a getaway quicker'n a bat out of hell." Their labours done they paused, took a lusty swig from the cognac and decided to chance whatever trouble might come. They were unarmed noncombatants but both wore uniforms of the French service and it would be difficult to guess what would happen to them if they were taken prisoner by the Huns.

With Maggie-Owen at the wheel, her hand on the ignition lock, her foot on the accelerator, James switched on the car lights for a long minute. There was no gleam from the wood. Again he flooded on the lights and after what seemed endless hours there came a flick of light no greater than the gleam of a firefly. Again the car lights flooded the hills and again there was an answering glint. James Sully took the wheel and hastily prepared for flight but the lights picked out figures in the blue of the French service creeping up the hill and all was well. When they came within speaking distance and said they were drivers of an ambulance whose vehicle had been wrecked by the surprise shelling of the road, Maggie's fluid knees regained solidity and her belly sank into its normal space.

The impact of a shell had driven the ambulance into a tree, wrecking it, killing two of the wounded within and injuring both drivers. This had happened before midday and since that time they had remained helpless in the wood for, though the road had formerly been a main artery for troops and supplies going to the front, it had sometime before been abandoned for another cut through country nine kilometres to the west. Why the ambulance had taken the abandoned route the men did not explain nor were they asked to do so for there was no more logical explanation for the presence of Maggie and Jim than there was for theirs.

The problem now was to transport five wounded men who must lie supine in a vehicle that was built to carry four upright. Declining Maggie's assistance Jim went down the hill to help the Frenchmen. Maggie was left to sit on the lone and ghostly hilltop for what seemed hours until a Frenchman climbed the hill again with the word that she was to drive the ambulance to the lower gradient.

Inch by inch down the hill she drove, nipping into gullies and hurling over fallen brush until she brought the car up by the roadside. Enough of the wrecked ambulance was salvaged to build up the floor of the motor car to a level with the seats and into this crude ambulance they tied the wounded in their own blood-flecked blankets, binding them fast with what material could be torn from both cars and from the clothing of the men themselves. Dawn was breaking when a weary Maggie slipped behind the wheel of the car, the more seriously wounded of the French drivers propped beside her, to turn back on the trek she had so vaingloriously taken that morning. To leave Maggie with a wounded man in the deserted country was not to be thought of, so, as the lesser of two evils, James Sully and the second Frenchman stayed behind, fortified by the remaining cognac.

At the hospital, where Maggie had so lately been a patient, the wounded were taken from the improvised ambulance and much was made of her courage and endurance. She reported the plight of brash James and his companion and doubtless a conveyance was sent for them. She never knew nor did she again see James Sully for she had no address other than James Sully in care of the French army at large and that seemed to her a bit vague. As for James, he did not know her name. He had called her "Babe."

Shortly Maggie and her medical swain were en route for Paris and there the powers that be lauded her mightily but discreetly avoided mention of the stolen motor car. They hinted that the French nation was ever appreciative and that in due time she would be properly rewarded for her valour.

So ended the tale of the brave trek of Maggie-Owen Melody in the war of 1914, and to the young ladies of her posterity she addresses these words of wisdom. Never follow in the footsteps of your grandame or you'll find the walking heavy.

I HAVE been found fit to return to my duties, or the unit is so shorthanded they do not care if I am fit or not. At any rate I am back and I find it vastly changed. There is little of the camaraderie that existed when we first organized. Marthe is no longer high priestess. We are now commanded by a somewhat elderly one-armed and retired officer of the French army who cannot make up his mind whether to treat the ladies of the unit as soldiers of the republic or as femmes du pavé. One day he roars the whole of the time and the next he pats passing feminine bottoms one and all with a languishing leer. If old men could but hear the comments of seemingly complaisant young women regarding their senile amorousness I'm sure they would use more restraint.

I'm on duty from six o'clock until ten and from sixteen o'clock until twenty. It seems a great deal like a game of checkers for they change wounded from one hospital to another hospital without reason as far as I can discover. I am well wearied this night and grateful for abundant hot water and a shiningly clean tub.

There are seven letters piled on the writing table but I am saving them until I am washed, my hair brushed and my many prayers said. I shall then treat myself to a good gossip with whoever has taken the trouble to write me. I do hope there is a letter from Edward.

This day I've had eight-to-eighteen o'clock duty with no rest period and I do not like such long shift. I think my recovery is not as whole as I thought or maybe the skylarking I did with James was not of benefit. For the first time since I can remember my sleep is broken and riddled with dreams. Sometimes I'm back again at the hospital and the long rows of quiet dead arise and jeer at me. I'm beginning to find the same comfort in a swig of brandy as I did at St. Vincente. It sends the ghosts scurrying back to their own bourne.

I had my long-looked-for letter from Edward today and I'm so wrathy I could spit from here to Elphin. He seems to brush aside good manners and writes me he does not see how he could be expected to visit Blackstone "under existing conditions." He didn't honour Catherine or her children by writing their names, but bundled them altogether as "existing conditions." Damn his proud soul.

My first impulse was to write a blistering letter but I decided against it. There is enough ill will in the world and I'll not add to it. I'm bad humoured and pettish and poor company for myself or anyone else. I've never given over a task I set my hand to or I'd go home. I feel really ill and weakened. Marthe's doctor husband finds little wrong with me but he hems and haws at the amount of labour expected of me.

Toppy MacCallum is dead. Throughout the dark hours of the night the word swung back and forth in my brain--- "Dead, dead, dead, dead," like the pendulum of a clock. My life long I have believed in the goodness of God but I'm beginning now to doubt all the things I've been taught.

I have been notified that the Croix de Guerre will be bestowed upon me. It is ironic. I, with a stranger as tipsy as myself, racketed forth in a stolen motor car seeking adventure. The fact that we were of use to our fellowmen was most incidental. Now I am to be honoured for my mischief. At that it has as much reason in it as many an honour given. I do not give a lusty damn about the thing but I do derive satisfaction from annoying the people in the unit who let me simmer in my own juice first at the hospital and later at the Café Chardonneret. Had it not been for the amorous medic I would doubtless still be sitting in the café drinking anisette.

This morning all at the Turner Unit were pride-swollen but their pride was as uneasy as that of a bride on her first wedding night. My uniform was valeted and my cap also but I have lived day in and day out in them since last September and they were definitely on the shabby side. I decided they would not do and concocted a scheme to glorify myself with a new costume in which to receive my medal. So I bespoke a few hours' leave and it was given me with the warning that the momentous hour was not far off and that General Officers of the French army were not to be kept waiting.

I sped to Duvalier's, shucked my rags and before one could say Jack Spratt I was clad in the most fashionable items the house of Duvalier afforded. Above a long tight skirt, split to the knee, I wore a blouse broidered and tortured in vancoloured thread and over all a moujik coat, tight fitting at the waist and belling out about my knees and buttoned to the throat to meet a great collar of sable furs. My upstanding Russian hat was of sable also and my red hair was coifed and curled within an inch of its life. I was, Madame assured me, "of a ravishment." I was, no doubt, but it was a hell of a costume to embellish with a military decoration.

Shortly before the ceremony I climbed as agilely as my tight skirt would allow from my cab and was almost blown back into it again by the indignant blasts issuing from the bosoms of the elect. I was ordered to get back into my uniform at once but I had craftily left it at Duvalier's and there was no time at all to send for it. To their dark murmurs I announced I'd be decorated as I was or not at all and I didn't give a tinker's damn one way or the other.

There was much astonishment in the General's eye and in those of his henchmen at the appearance of the elegant young woman awaiting his ministrations, but it was hastily explained that the young woman was "Irlandaise" and were not all Irlandaises mad? Therefore without further, ado somewhat was read from a paper and somewhat from another paper and the dangle was pinned on my bosom with at least one small pat on the same bosom by the General Officer of the Army of France. My cheeks were garlicly saluted, profuse compliments were paid, but before the official car was two lengths away merry hell came down upon my cossacked head. I did not care. My mischief brought laughter and laughter is something I need beyond food and drink.

This day when I came home I found Laure waiting for me. She said Ernest had rung through a half-dozen times with no result. They are most set up about my dangle and Laure says Gobble is quite beside herself. I felt so petted and cosseted I began weeping and wept all the time Laure was with me. She has great concern, wants me to stay with her whilst I'm in Paris, or else advises me to take off home. I'll do neither though I'd like to do both. She told me also that Malcolm is due to arrive in Paris shortly. Tis odd he does not write me.

Today came a letter from Edward, ten closely written pages and I've read and reread them until I can almost sing them. Though I did not scold about his attitude toward Catherine I think he caught the tone of my thoughts. He begs me to hold off my ill opinion of him until we can talk together. Leave is being given to officers slated for front-line duty and he expects his regiment to move up before long. Now there is something else to fret me. I'm a great zany no doubt but I had not thought of Edward as being in action. Maybe I thought he'd always be between the distillery and the deep sea.

Yesterday was New Year's Day. I wonder what the New Year will bring to the saddened world. A great box of roses came from Rob, my Scots swain, and a box of white and blue violets from Laure and Ernest. I wept. Always I had great pride in my lack of tears and now I weep if one but gives a kind word to me, or a kick or a curse. My bladder has moved up near to my eyes no doubt.

New Year's night Rob took me to Le Becs where we found a grand gala in progress. We danced and drank, flirted and sang bawdy songs until near to midnight when we went to the Arc de Triomphe and seemingly with all Paris sang the Marseillaise. Hundreds of voices took up the tune and it was truly thrilling. Again I wept.

Near us were two young American girls, very drunken, and two Frenchmen who were up to no good I'll warrant. I spoke to the girls and greatly to the indignation of their swains coaxed them to come home with us. The gentlemen set up abuse of me, and got as good as ever they sent and also kick in the behind from Rob who did not know what they were talking about but who did not fancy their tone of voice. There will be diplomatic complications no doubt.

Today I was told off to take two bloated old Brass Hats gallivanting, though we are never supposed to take anyone anywhere except on official business. Official business! My eye and Betty Martin! I spent the greater part of a dour day in having my behind pinched, nudged and patted by two omothaunes aged enough to be my grandsires. I was fast getting to a state of frenzy when they picked up two bawds and thereafter I was left in peace though the sights I beheld reflected in my shield glass were far from edifying. It was well after tea time when they bade me stop at the American Bar and await their return. I did no such thing. I went back to the unit in an ill frame of mind and demanded a cadet to drive with me and take the motor car back from the San Savaran.

I was peevish when I stepped from the car at the door and muttered to myself all of the way up the steps. Just in front of me two men vanished through the door. Their behinds were most familiar but there are now many behinds familiar to me in Paris and I paid scant heed to anything but my own ill temper. I made direct for the lift but something caused me to turn my eyes and, glory be to God, there were Malcolm and Edward. My first impulse was to sprint up to them but I held off until they turned toward the lounge when I stepped up and saluted them smartly. We made so much hearty clamour all heads turned in our direction. Ladies kissing gentlemen are no novelty in this day and age but a small lady kissing two large gentlemen, turn and turn about, was something else again. Peevishness and ill temper vanished and hate for British officers vanished also, for here I had two of the very best variety doting on me.

They came above to my rooms and approved of the furnishings, of the mirrors, of the view and of my uniform, but alack! they hadn't a good word to say about my appearance. They thought me overthin, overdrawn and overcolourless, and they thought also I should up and go home at once. I do wonder myself why I stay on. Stubbornness no doubt. We had up a double bottle of champagne and drank a toast to all at home, including Darky and Foxey, and shortly Edward was chatting of Catherine and the children as if he had given her in the banns of holy wedlock himself.

It is so fine to speak with them, to touch them or even just to behold them. I wish to God the slate were cleaned of this dirty old war and we were all back at Blackstone again. My swains await me. We go forth to seek food and foolishness.

My two dear lads have come here to the San Savaran that no moment would be lost to us. Never since I've known Malcolm has he appeared so fine. He appears but a contemporary of Edward who is as usual a bit on the grave side. I was ashamed to ask more leave of the unit but Malcolm solved such problem by requesting I be assigned as his personal chauffeur for official business. The amount of official business engaging him is now a proper caution.

I have no split duty at all. Eightish I report, am given whatever motor car there is on hand, and then I nip back to the San Savaran and tuck the car into the court behind the hotel and get into my bed until such time as the lads come to wake me for breakfast which we have in my parlour. I wear my handsomest négligé and Malcolm streaks through the passage clad in house gown and boots but Edward, God bless him, appears as though on parade, with brass buttons shining and everything in place.

This day we went forth with Edward and Malcolm sitting in the salon car whilst I was a proper chauffeur outside. We left Malcolm at the war office, then went along to Laure's and had a good talk. It was the first time she had met Edward and she was delighted with him. Ernest is not in Paris at the moment. I do hope he returns before Malcolm's leave is over. I'm so grateful that Edward has made it up with Malcolm. We had our lunch at Laure's though Laure herself had an engagement elsewhere or she so pretended. Gobble hovered about like a friendly spirit. We bridged the years between Blackstone and Paris and I had out of Edward why he had kept such long silence. He was ashamed. Fancy that! He told me he had wanted badly to give over his pouting but he thought he had made such a gomb of himself in the beginning no one would want aught to do with him.

He's grown into such a grand lad though he always has been a grand lad to me. He made great jest of my marriage to Ernest, saying he had practically irrigated the dry country where he lived with his tears. Maybe he was jesting but there was a certain tone that belied such thing or maybe I put such tone in myself because I wanted it so. I do wonder how he regards me. I damn well know how I regard him but I'll keep such knowledge to myself until those concerned ask me for it.

After we breakfasted this morning Malcolm bade us to get on with our affairs and he'd take a cab to the war office but I felt shy of Edward and insisted on driving Malcolm. I did so. They sat in the salon and made wry comments on my driving methods but I gave them as good as they sent through the speaking tube. After we had shucked Malcolm I drove Edward to Duvalier's to help me select a gown. I told him of Madame outfitting me for my decoration and he nearly laughed himself to death. At first he did not believe me until I reached into my breeks and drew my cross forth. I've never in the world worn it. I would feel foolish ornamented with the thing and I well know I did not earn it.

When I step forth again with my gentlemen there will be many sovereigns' worth of clothing on my narrow back. If I behold a certain gleam in Edward's eye I shall consider the money well spent. I am dreadfully damned happy.

Last night we traipsed the length and breadth of Paris and I felt most odd about such thing. When I was a child at Blackstone I regarded Malcolm as being but a step below Almighty God himself and though I dearly loved him I took no liberties with him. Last night he went along with us and was as ready for mischief as ever we were. Indeed he was greatly more larky than was Edward.

Regardless of my uniform, my marriage to Ernest and the fact that I've been on my own for a long time, I seemed unable to impress either Malcolm or Edward with my dignity. They both treated me as though I were but slightly older than the Maggie-Owen of Blackstone. Last evening I fixed them! I insisted that they meet me in the foyer and when I swept out of the lift in all of my finery they did not know me. During the whole of the time we dined they regarded me with wry glances, resentful that I had upset their conception of me. It finally did come to them after a bit that they had a woman Maggie-Owen to deal with instead of the child Maggie-Owen, and there wasn't a thing they could do to return her to her former state. After they had thus accepted me, a queen could not have had more gallant attention than I.

At the Ritz we became pleasantly tiddely and Edward stroked my hand under the table napkin and then tried to appear as though he did no such thing. I held my hand quiet in the hope he would do it again but he did not. From the Ritz we went to Rougeot's and from there to the Crillon where we came upon Ernest and Laure. Edward's back stiffened when he was presented to Ernest and I wanted badly to titter. Ernest cast a larky eye and began making a great to-do over me. It was comical.

I danced with Ernest and he teased me asking when would the banns be cried with Edward and I protested against any such idea. A long languid blonde got clutches into Edward and I had a hell of a time freeing him. I was angry. The nasty woman coogered up to him and he appeared not to dislike it. I paid him back for his dalliance by kissing Ernest good night with great fervour.

We traipsed the night through and ended at the Halles eating onion soup with gentlemen smelling not too delicately of last night's potions. We came again to the San Saveran in broad daylight and Edward kissed me good night, or morning rather, with no more fervour than Malcolm and Malcolm's kiss was about the same as that he might have given to his newest infant. They came with me to my door and I went within and stripped the finery from me and steeped myself in a hot bath until my potions were cooked out of me and then had a good cold sponge to waken me.

I have made tea and shortly shall go forth to the unit, tab myself in and return to sleep. Malcolm must manage the forenoon as best he may.

It is ten days since I've written in my book. Each of my lads has returned to his particular hell and I do not know what in the world I shall do without them. I am chancy of temper and tears are always near to my eyes for I have made a dreadful discovery. I am madly in love with Edward. I well know this is real and not the crazed emotions begotten by war. I've loved Edward from my childhood and it is great nonsense to say a child cannot love for I know better.

I have tried and tried to make myself believe Edward is in love with me but I'm afraid it won't do. Maybe there was a gleam in his eye now and then but it well might have been just a competitive spirit toward swains casting sheep's eyes at me. Thrice I have heard Edward say a man at war has no right to wed a woman and chance widowing her, so it well might be he would not wed me even if he loved me. There is no rose lining to my cloud tonight. If only he had asked me to wed him I'd wait until twenty wars were over. As it is I have nothing to look forward to. "I drink no drink but find it gall, and food holds but the savour of my rotted dreams." Now where in the devil did I remember that from? It has a fine swing to it anyway.

Sitting about mourning will get us nowhere, my good book, so you go into your shelf and I'll go below to the café and have a swig. No matter how sorrowful I am there is always a swig left to comfort me though I'd rather run to Kate Melody and weep my sorrows into her apron, if ever she owned an apron which I greatly doubt.

AMERICAN HOSPITAL, Paris, France.

Fate trips me more than is my due. I seek to arrange life in an orderly way and ask but a fair bit of fun. Nevertheless and always an industrious and nasty bug hunts me down, dashes all my plans to bits and lays me low. At any rate I was a lusty woman for the time Malcolm and Edward were in Paris. I enjoyed every moment of their stay and I have at least that much to remember and hearten me whilst I'm on the broad of my back at the American Hospital.

Some four weeks ago I reported in at the unit feeling somewhat drunken though I had had nothing to make me so. I drove off on an errand and somewhere on the way I went blotto and the next thing I knew I was in my room at the San Savaran dancing fandangos with strange gentlemen atop the water carafe. I was puzzled to know if I had shrunk to the size of the carafe or if it had swollen to mine but the matter gave me little concern for I was trying to stave off a woman who was tossing me about and repeating, "Good heavens, this is the thinnest thing I've ever seen alive in my born days." Over and over again she said it and even sang the words, and that was the very last I knew for quite a while.

I now live the life of one of the better-class worms. There is a faint aurora of tuberculosis hanging about and Switzerland is delicately suggested. I'll fight the notion tooth and nail. I well know I am not tubercular. I'm overweary and I need but a lung full of Irish air to set me right. I'll drink milk and eat porridge and say my prayers on a hilltop. It might well be that God has altogether retired to Ireland. Certainly he seems to be missing from the Continent.

I have put in for sick leave of indefinite length and if it comes through I'll get to hell out of here and leave war and its alarms behind me. It is very humiliating to have my numerous admirers keeping away from me. I expect there is no place in their lusty lives for a frail lady. Eat, drink and go to bed with a woman tonight for tomorrow a shell bearing your name may find you. What unhappy damned nonsense.

Today two letters were forwarded from the San Saveran. They were both from Edward and might have been copied from the correct letter writer. I wonder if he's fearful of leading a young woman on. I wouldn't blame him if he were, considering the scandalous advances I made to him in my youth.

Laure came to visit me today much troubled and wanting to take me home with her. I told her to set her wit to getting me a sick furlough and she went forth from me determined and grim-lipped. Ernest popped in later but only for a moment. He is hurried and worried by many matters.

This has been an unusual day. A faint knock came at my door and at my bidding a complete stranger entered. I thought he was another doctor for whenever a doctor has nothing to amuse him he comes to my room and asks the identical questions the doctor before him asked. The gentleman seemed somewhat nonplussed and stood just within the door twirling his hat like a great zany. I was sharp in asking his business and it was the queerest business I ever came upon.

I bade him draw up a chair and he spun me a tale. It was a queer tale and mainly about myself.

Long ago I had a tailed gown and it brought such grief to me I never put it on my back again and it was a handsome gown too. The gentleman who walked in to see me today was responsible for the grief. When I was Mrs. Kenmore, after long argument with Laure, I purchased a gown at Worth's. I wanted it as much as if it were the last gown allowed to me in my life, and despite Laure's insistence that Worth was no one to fashion gowns for a young woman, as usual I had my way. It was a stiff white satin affair with a tail as long as the Cure's cat and not enough goods above the waistline to make a pocket handkerchief for a dwarf. It was a handsome costume and one fitting for a woman twenty years my senior and a good bit statelier than ever I could hope to be.

The night of a grand gala arrived and I went with Ernest and Laure decked out in all of my glory. The affair was a formal reception for an Indian prince. We went within and I switched my long tail up to the powder room and once there began to doubt the wisdom of my choice of gown. With Laure more or less shielding me we came down again and joined the gentlemen. I resolved to put a good face on the matter for I thought I detected several envious glances cast in my direction.

I had forgotten my untoward garment when I beheld a lad peering out at me from behind a tub of foliage and for the remainder of the evening I had but to turn my head and there he was peering and peering with all sorts of expressions mixed up on his face and I did not like any of them. By the time supper was announced I was upset. Guests began strolling in a fine orderly manner toward the supper room which was a few steps down from the reception salon. I was beside Ernest walking in great style when the maundering lad popped in behind us and trod on my beautiful tail. It pitched me forward and I measured my length on the floor and there I lay all tangled up in my finery. And who should assist me to my feet but the gomb who had caused the trouble in the first place. Gladly would I have sunk my teeth into his flesh to give vent to my rage but instead I thanked him prettily and stepped into the supper room. I was so mad I could not eat and that was ever a serious condition with me.

On the way home in the motor car Ernest laughed himself helpless and by that time the whole affair was beginning to be humorous to me also. Not much, but a little. When I got home, to the complete horror of Gobble, I threw the gown into the passage and bade her do what she wished with the thing and I threw a hearty curse along with it.

Once again I saw the unfortunate gentleman, but I fled before he could do more mischief to me. And never from that day until this did I lay eyes on him. The lad that walked in at my door this day thinks I am still Mrs. Kenmore. He discovered my whereabouts by dogging Ernest's footsteps. I cannot think what he wants of me. After he recalled himself to my mind he bade me adieu and went away. He is an American. Why he lingers on in Paris I do not know. His name is Thomas W.

Letters and flowers arrived today from Kate Melody and a letter also to my doctor telling him off no doubt. Laure came in and is most hopeful of the sick furlough coming through. A helpful doctor of the hospital has written to the unit saying that I am unfit for my duties, having a "tubercular tendency." Well, hurrah for tubercular tendency if it gets me home.

Thomas W. comes to visit me daily and I am sure he thinks my illness due to Ernest's harsh treatment of me. When he discovered I was booked at the hospital as Miss Melody I needs must tell him of the annulment. He was greatly shocked.

For a fortnight I have been permitted to spend the greater part of the day out of my bed. I am feeling well but a trifle weak. I do wish I could fall in love with Thomas W. I can think of nothing finer than dwelling with him for all the days of my life. It does no good to think such thoughts for I well know if I don't wed Edward I'll never wed anyone. Maybe Kate Melody and I will dwell lonesomely together eating our hearts out for the lads who will have none of us.

I am back again at the San Saveran. Thomas W. brought me here yesterday along with Laure who stayed the night with me. She fidgets and worries about me. Ernest spent the evening and I wished they had not taken such trouble because I was wearied, but this morning found me hearty and eager to be gone.

Thomas W. is coming to Ireland with me for no better reason, he says, than that he has never seen Ireland. He may as well be there as anywhere because the school where he is studying architecture is practically closed, both masters and students being engaged with la guerre.

With God's help I'll be in Ireland by Sunday-Monday at the latest. I'm glad to leave the war behind me and yet I am ashamed to go now when my service is so badly needed. God save Paris. And God save the world. I do wish I could manage a visit to my old lads. They would love my dangle. This is my last night in Paris for a while anyhow. It appears so fine from my window.

A week ago today my train drew into the depot at Athione and I beheld Kate Melody wrestling with the largest dog ever I saw in my life. He was determined to go one way and Kate was determined he was going no ways at all. No sooner did Thomas W. step on the platform with me when she thrust the leader into his hand and carried me to the motor car cursing heartily because she ever gave consent to my remaining in Paris. The great dog gave no more trouble and we drove home in the finest part of the day with the light going down behind the hills and the night wind beginning to stir.

I came home to Castlereagh and not to Blackstone. Except for her shorn locks there is no change at all in Ann Conner. There is little change in anyone for that matter. I have not seen Bess or her family but Crofty is as weazened as he ever was. I have not seen Catherine or the children either for they are housebound with a childish illness on two of them. Catherine writes me a note every day of her life and the carrier brings it to me. God love all here.

Thomas W. is charmed with Ireland. He walks about and talks to everyone he meets and smokes a great carved pipe. He says if I will support him in the manner to which he is not accustomed he might be persuaded to wed me. He is very dry in wit.

It is too bad there is such difference in age between Thomas W. and Kate Melody for there is great sympathy between them. There was no hole or corner in the countryside she has not shown him and it was comical to see the man's astonishment at finding Ireland such a fine country. He told Kate his father Thomas père was a great friend of Dublin-born Saint-Gaudens but Kate snorted the man down as a mongrel and no true Irishman at all.

I do wonder when the war will end. I wonder also when Edward will come again to us.

I am home a month today and I am hearty here at Blackstone visiting with Catherine and the dear children. I am back in the same room I had as a small girl and there is nothing changed. I never waken but I expect to see wry old Bess coming in at the door. Catherine's children are handsome young ones. They run the hills as I ran them, the two older ones at least.

Thomas W. has gone to London and since that time has sent great packets of fruits and sweets. I was fretted for fear he would ask me to wed him and that I could never do though it would seem poor return for all of the favours he has shown me to give a cold "no" to him. He saved me trouble for he made no serious mention of marriage for which I was most grateful.

I sleep and eat and drink milk from the Blackstone herd and the flesh is beginning to cover my sharp bones. I am so happy to be home.

AND so for Maggie-Owen April rounded into May and the grass was green on the earth's breast. The orchard beyond the house at Blackstone bloomed fully into its gown of tinted lace and in this orchard Maggie swung in her hammock and lay days on days' end drawing strength from bird song, from the lush verdure under her feet, from the warm wind rollicking in from the sea, from rest and contentment and the kindliness of her own people.

Through the orchard gate, on a fine morning in mid-May, strolled Edward, older, browner and hardened by the business of war. Hand in pocket he came, switching the bluets with his stick as casually as if it were but yesterday he had gone from there. At his feet were Foxey and Darky larking and clamorous, and in her breast Maggie's heart was larking and clamorous also.

From the circle of Edward's arms the girl Maggie looked down the years and beheld the woman Maggie and saw her children running through the orchard gate toward a lighted hearth to the arms of Maggie-Owen, their mother.

Now did Castlereagh and Blackstone stir to new life with a wedding on their doorstep. There was discussion and conjecture if Maggie who had borne a matron's title could properly wear the lace of the Melody women on her head. And wear it she did, and her grandame's damask gown yellowed with years as well.

It was a war marriage indeed but it was a marriage with neither tears nor foreboding. Instead there were the gaiety and laughter and joy of a race who had long learned to take each day's happiness as it came to them with no wish to peep over the rim of life to see what would come on the morrow.

When the feast was done and the healths called, the fiddlers proper for an Irish wedding came in, and through the spring-sweet afternoon Maggie, laces drawn over her arm, danced the hours through. She danced with Edward and with friends and neighbors and kith and kin, for such is the marriage custom of the Irish people.

When the sun was low in the west, Edward and his Maggie fled the company and, in tweeds and brogues, whistled out the dogs and together tramped the hills they had known so well in childhood. And, as they did then, they felt the soft wind against their faces, heard the whirr of night birds' wings and the homely, gentle movement of cattle roaming the hills. Through the silver light of dusk they turned home again to Kate Melody and Ann Conner who loved them, and to lovely Catherine and her children. Only Malcolm, knowing nothing of their hasty ceremony, was missing.

And so it came to pass that the girl and boy who had loved each other since their childhood wed and began their life together in the room that the small and sickened Maggie had found so wonderful in the years gone by. In the morning the boy and girl went joyously forth together from the house of Blackstone---and it was many a long day until Maggie again beheld it.

On the road westerly from London are the lilac gardens of Kew, and it was May and they were in full bloom. Beyond Kew lies Richmond, and beyond that, following the lower road by the Thames, one comes upon the inn of the Star and Garter, long ago the hostelry of one Thomas Forty and his buxom wife Catherine, who made life the merrier for guests beneath its friendly roof. If this legend is true, it was here on Catherine Forty's ample bosom that King George the Fourth found refuge from the dour moods of his wife, Catherine of Brunswick. And it was here that Maggie-Owen and Edward spread their marriage over the twenty-one days allotted to them. They tramped the great park at Richmond, rode the long highroad to Kingston before the grass was dried of morning dew beneath their horses' feet, and spent lazy days with their punt pole dipping to the brassy whine of a borrowed phonograph.

London was a scant hour away and London nights held lights and music and young joyousness for them as it did for others caught, as they were caught, in a web not of their own weaving. In these days together the girl and boy planned, as other girls and boys planned, their life together, the young years, the middle years, the old years. They had none of them.

There must have been many other young wives at Victoria that day. Wives who heard the raucous-voiced train guard calling the hour, heard the sound of hurrying feet, the clang of a compartment door, who beheld the train gathering speed and bearing away one as dear to them as Edward was to Maggie-Owen. And to some of them may have come the same dark words printed on a bit of saffron paper, "KILLED IN ACTION."

From the sowing of her dreams Maggie had garnered but three short weeks of life, and perfect as they were they could not hold her steadfast in a swaying world. On Effingham Hill in Surrey, the Sisters of the Precious Blood tend those ailing in body and soul and there for over a year Maggie lay hidden from the world she had come to hate, turning over time on end the dreadful thought that life no longer held Edward. To Effingham Hill in time came Kate Melody in anger and impatience at Maggie's selfish mourning.

It was the blast of Kate Melody's seeming wrath that blew Maggie from her bed to London and from London to Southampton and from there across the sea to the port of New York. She went to Van Etten to mend her broken body and spirit under the kindliness of Agnes and her family, and no small part of her healing was due to the understanding and sympathy of the beloved grandsire.