Soon after he crossed the road for his coffee I
heard the officers laughing and chatting as if it were a week-end house
party.
When Amelie came to get my breakfast she looked a wreck--I saw one of
her famous bilious attacks coming.
It was a little after eleven, while the chef-major was upstairs writing,
that his orderly came with a paper and carried it up to him. He came
down at once, made me one of his pretty bows at the door of the library,
and holding out a scrap of paper said:--
"Well, madame, we are going to leave you. We advance at two."
I asked him where he was going.
He glanced at the paper in his hand, and replied:--
"Our orders are to advance to Saint-Fiacre,--a little east of Meaux,--
but before I go I am happy to relieve your mind on two points. The
French cavalry has driven the Uhlans out--some of them were captured as
far east as Bouleurs. And the English artillery has come down from the
hill behind you and is crossing the Marne. We follow them. So you see
you can sit here in your pretty library and read all these nice books in
security, until the day comes--perhaps sooner than you dare hope--when
you can look back to all these days, and perhaps be a little proud to
have had a small part in it.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176