again that we hear scarcely a murmur from these suffering people in their terrible distress. What do we want with this mutilated country for which they are ready to die?
Here is the tale of a patriot that outstrips the wildest imagination to have conceived. A certain woman, so poor that she had but one miserable garment to protect her starving babe, catches sight of some "munitions" that are lying near her, exposed to the cold! She does not hesitate a moment, but lifting her poor child's only covering, carefully wraps it round the "instruments of war." Maybe the good God will send me another child," she whispered; "at all costs, my country must be saved!"
How dare we attempt to hamper these people's freedom, bought at so dear a price? Surely the future is theirs to shape as they will.
When the morning is well advanced, and the sun is streaming upon me through scarlet lace curtains, I am at last awakened from dreams of burning cities to the alarms of war. Downstairs, sad and bewildered faces almost convince me that actual hostilities have begun. But I am now fully awake, and still refuse to believe.
"It is absolute nonsense," I insist on telling them. "My country is your friend."
But even the optimism of our host had been shaken by the pessimist newspaper reports. They all knew, however, that, if it was war, I should stay with them, and they would allow me to nurse our own "men.". . . It was not the "men" who would make war; and I gladly repeated their high tributes to the fine soldierly qualities of the Turk, in startling contrast to most Germans!
Our host himself superintended the preparation of my breakfast tray—eggs and butter, honey and jam, fruits and cheese.
"You have sent me a grocer's shop," I exclaimed to him later, but he waived aside my gratitude with a casual, "Don't mention it."
