contribution of example and suggestion.  Seventeen women cannot re-build in a day an external civilisation which has been blotted out by the savagery of a nation; but they can and they are re-building the souls of the human derelicts who have survived the savagery.  This war is going to be won not by the combination of nations which has most men and guns, but by the side which possesses the highest spiritual qualities.  The same is true of the countries which will wipe out the effects of war most quickly when the war is ended.  The first countries to recover will be those which fight on in a new way, after peace has been signed, for the same ideals for which they have shed their blood.  The sight of these American women, living helpfully and voluntarily for the sake of others among hideous surroundings, is a perpetual reminder to the dispirited refugees that, whatever else is lost, valiance and loyalty still survive.

From Grecourt I went farther afield to Croix, Y and Matigny.  Here a young architect is in charge of the reconstruction.  No attempt is being made at present to re-build the farms entirely.  Labour is difficult to obtain—­it is all required for military purposes.  The same applies to materials.  Patching is the best that can be done.  Just to get a roof over one corner of a ruin is as much as can be hoped for.  Until that is done the people have to live in cellars, in shell-holes, in verminous dug-outs like beasts of prey or savages.  Their position is far more deplorable than that of Indians, for they once knew the comforts of civilisation.  For instance, I visited a farmer who before the war was a millionaire in French money.  Many of the farmers of this district were; their acreages were large even by prairie standards.  The American Red Cross has managed to reconstruct one room for him in a pile of debris which was once a spacious house.  There he lives with his old wife, who, during the Hun occupation, became nearly blind and almost completely paralytic.  His sons and daughters have been swept beyond his knowledge by the departing armies.  Before the Huns left, he had to stand by and watch them uselessly lay waste his home and possessions.  His trees are cut down.  His barns are laid flat.  His cattle are behind the German lines.  At the age of seventy, he is starting all afresh and working harder than ever he did in his life.  The young architect of the Red Cross visits him often.  They sit in the little room of nights, erecting barns and houses more splendid than those that have vanished, but all in the green quiet of the untested future.  They shall be standing by the time the captive sons come back.  It is a game at which they play for the sake of the blinded mother; she listens smilingly, nodding her old head, her frail hands folded in her lap.