The men in their blue garb listen to some of this story with profound attention. They have a very touching, respectful, earnest way of talking to the Belgian lady, and are very anxious to impress upon her that soon they will have her country cleared of the enemy.
“You tell her that, miss. She do believe it, don’t she? We’re going to sweep them out in no time. Tell her that, miss. That’s what we’re over there for. She’ll soon be able to get back there—back in her own home.”
One of them gazes at her for a while in a kind of brooding silence, and then says huskily:
“Isn’t it a mercy you got away, ma’am—you and your little children!”
He knows. He has seen.
Then Viviane is called upon to sing “Tipperary.”
Though only just three, this child, as has been said before, she looks a sturdy four. The most jovial solid, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, smiling, curly-haired little girl that it is possible to imagine. Her mother says that she never lost her balance and tumbled down even when she first began to toddle; and one can well believe it. There is a mixture of strength and deliberation in everything she does that makes one regret she is not a boy. But she has pretty, coaxing, coquettish ways that are quite feminine.
She now puts her head on one side, and ogles with her blue eyes first one soldier and another, and smiles angelically as she pipes “Tipperary.”
This is a favourite song among the infant population these days. The child of a friend of ours calls it her hymn, and sings it in church.
There is something really engaging in Viviane’s roll of the “r’s.” Her Tipperary is very guttural and conscientious, and her “Good-bye, Piccadeely” always provokes the laughter of admiration.