Château ——, France.
To M. PUNCH.
CHER MONSIEUR,—Shall I write to you of the toil, the fatigues which my sisters and I must endure at the hands of our country's Allies, without kindling in your breast that flame of chivalry which is the common glory of our two races? C'est incroyable.
Let us then to my complaint.
We lived for many years, my two sisters and I, in the service of our dear master, who owned a beautiful château in the North of France.
Our duties were simple—to entertain the guests of M. le Vicomte after dinner on those evenings upon which he gathered his friends around him.
For the rest we lived in the ease which his kind generosity knew how to provide. We loved our own particular boudoir, with its books, its pictures, its comfortable fauteuils and its soft green cushions.
Oh, Monsieur, it makes me to weep when I think of my beautiful sisters—the one with her laughing rosy cheeks, the other pale as ivory, save for one little black spot, which no man surely could call a blemish.
Those were happy days. Often we kissed, my sisters and I, for very joy.
Then it came—this terrible War. M. le Vicomte was called away in the cause of la belle France; but we would not desert our home. One day, we said, it shall be as of old.