As I turned away, a sturdy youth tapped me gently on the arm, begging shelter for his great-grandmother, a woman ninety-three years old, whom he had carried on his back all the way from St. Quentin.  A cot in the entrance hall was all prudence permitted me to offer, and it was charming to see how tenderly the young fellow bore the poor little withered woman to her resting-place.  She was so dazed that I fear she hardly realized what was happening, but tears of gratitude streamed down her cheeks when her boy appeared with a bowl of hot soup, coaxing her to drink, like a child, and finally curling up on the rug beside her bed.

Five times that evening the great refectory table was surrounded by hungry men and women; five times I ladled out soup and vegetables to forty persons, and five times we all helped to wash up.  So when all was finally cleaned away, and Madame Guix and I fell exhausted onto two kitchen chairs, it was well onto eleven P. M.

My clever nurse informed me that she had arranged for the departure in a cart of the mother whose baby we had buried, and I in turn told her of my climb in the park and the approach of the cannon.  It was evident that the Germans were bearing down on us, and swiftly.  When we looked at the map and saw the names of the cities, towns and villages whose populations had succeeded each other down the road, it was clear that the French must be beating a forced retreat, or (and this was unlikely) panic had spread so quickly that the whole north of France was now moving south on a fool’s errand.  We cast this second hypothesis aside.  We had heard too many tales of woe and seen too much misery to believe anything of the sort.  Well, and then what?  Our case was simple—­either the Germans would be stopped before they reached us, or the French army would put in an appearance, in which latter case it would be time enough to leave, unless we were officially evacuated before!  Having adopted this simple line of conduct, we retired, quite satisfied and not in the least uneasy.

In the cool gray dawn of Wednesday morning, September second, when I opened my shutters and looked out into the little square that faces the chateau, I was amazed to see that the refugees who had halted there were in carts and wagons whose signs were most familiar.  They came from Soissons!

“Hello,” thought I, “I’ll go and see what they have to say!  Things must be getting very bad if a big city like Soissons suddenly takes to its heels.” (Soissons is but little over twenty miles from Villiers.) As I came down stairs I heard the drum roll, and George, who just then appeared with the milk, announced that the requisition of horses which should have taken place at Chateau-Thierry that morning, was indefinitely postponed.  That was hardly reassuring, especially as it was the first official news we had received in a long time.

So busy were we helping those who had slept at the chateau to depart, that I had no time to put my first intentions into execution, and when finally I had a moment, I looked out of the window and saw that my friends from Soissons had vanished.  They, too:  well, well, well!