"It is too near the battle line," she said to Henriette. "Don't you think she should have moved long ago?"
"But the Germans left it intact," Henriette declared. "She is very comfortable there. She does not wish to leave. Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth! could you not speak to some of your gr-r-reat, gr-r-reat, brave American officers and have it stopped?"
"Have what stopped?" cried Ruth in amazement.
"Aunt Abelard's removal."
"Are the Americans making her leave her home?"
"It is so!" Henriette declared.
"It is undoubtedly necessary then," returned Ruth gently.
"It is not understood. If she could remain there throughout the German invasion, and was undisturbed by our own army, why should these Americans plague her?"
Henriette spoke with some heat, and Ruth saw that her mother and the grandmother were listening. Their faces did not express their usual cheerful welcome with which Ruth had become familiar. Aunt Abelard's trouble made a difference in their feeling toward the Americans, that was plain.
Nor was this to be wondered at. The French farmer is as deeply rooted in his soil as the great trees of the French forests. That is why their treatment by the German invader and the ruin of their farms have been so great a cross for them to shoulder.