“I understand very well,” said Michelle in her pretty, quiet voice. “It is that here, beneath the trees, one can think very clearly, and when the thoughts are sad ones——”
“You’d rather they were interrupted,” put in Larry, pulling off bits of pine-bark to throw at two squirrels chattering on a limb overhead. “Seems to me we’re getting dismal for Christmas Day. Whose idea was this, anyway, to make a call on the Boches?”
“Michelle’s and mine,” said Lucy. “We promised Franz’ children some fruit and candy. Poor things, they have hardly anything. Franz is awfully poor, or else he is a perfect pig.”
“The children—they look cold, Captain Eaton,” added Michelle. “Do you know if all the peasants around Coblenz are very poor?”
“Some are. Of course many suffered in the war, though nothing in comparison to the French. But there’s a real scarcity of food and clothing here now.”
“They have plenty of wood to burn,” said Lucy. “But when the children run out-of-doors they shiver in those rags they wear.”
“The maman looks sad and hopeless. She seems not at all to care,” remarked Michelle wonderingly.
“The father is your special friend, isn’t he, Lucy?” asked Larry, his eyes twinkling.
“Yes, he’s my favorite,” she agreed, refusing to be teased. “He makes me think of the good old days last year in Château-Plessis.”
“Truly, he is not a joli type,” said Armand. “There is something hard about his eyes and smile.”