burning on our fire and the heap of old family treasures lying in one corner. We said nothing, we couldn't say anything; but as they sadly departed, the man muttered, "It is not very nice but after the war we will---" and we heard no more. Benney and I were silent and Gilmore forgot about his cocoa for a few minutes. It had never occurred to us before when we tore a house to pieces for firewood, and carted oft all the books and ornaments for souvenirs, that people like these had actually lived in them or would ever return. War becomes a little sadder, a little more real now, after we have seen what the civilian population has suffered. Before, Dombasle was only a mass of ruined buildings. Now we see in it the destruction of hundreds of happy homes, and the scattering abroad of all the inhabitants.
This week's American mail arrived today. I received four letters from the family, and one from Helen. She tells me the long promised socks have finally been finished. But instead of sending them in the usual manner, she is going to mail them in two separate packages, a week or ten days apart, so that (this is the brilliant idea) if one sock is lost at sea, she will have only one more to knit.
One of the new ten inch railway guns passed through town today and fired about fifty practice shots up to the Boche trenches on Hill 304, about
