I pressed another cup of coffee with a drop of brandy in it upon her.
She looked appealingly at both of us and then drank.
"Was your husband good to you?" asked Madame Guix.
"Ah, yes, Madame."
"Do you love him well enough to endure another sacrifice like a true wife and mother that you are?"
"Yes."
And then we told her that her baby bad gone—gone to a brighter Country where war is unknown. She looked at us in amazement, and burying her head on her arm, sobbed silently but submissively.
"Come, come, you must sleep—and when you are rested we will help you to find room in a cart which will take you towards your parents."
She cast a long, loving look at her first born, and let herself be led away.
All we could do was to make an official declaration of the death at the town hall. A small linen sheet served as shroud, a clean, flower-lined soap box formed that baby's coffin, and Greorge and I were the grave diggers and chief mourners, who laid the tiny body at rest in the little vine-grown churchyard. War willed it thus.
When I got back from the cemetery I found another load of refugees installed in the courtyard. This time they proved to be a hotel keeper and her servants from the Ardennes. They, however, had foreseen that flight was imminent and had carefully packed a greater part of their household belongings and valuables onto several wagons, taking care that all were well balanced and properly loaded so as to carry the maximum weight without tiring the horses. They needed less attention than the others had required, for when I explained that the house was theirs, they went about their work swiftly and silently, getting in no one's way and attending to every want of their mistress, who sat in her coupe and gave orders.