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ut I hope the following details will not seem as dry as s

rancs. With practically all the men mobilized, many families would have starved but for this provision. The wives or widows of soldiers are given a regular income by the French Government called "allocation,"-one

old-age pension for men and women over sixty. In addition to these pensions there are committees-Comité Franco-Belge, Comité de la Marne, Secours des Meusiens, etc., who help refugees by giving money and clothes to special cases. They are so swamped

find places to live and work, ill health often contracted from the hardships of the way down and the frightful shock of living through bombardment. Many of them, you see, were fairly well off in Rheims or Lille or Maubeuge, or wherever they c

son. With the prices of food and coal high, and constantly soaring, the poor people can just make out their rent and food, but cannot buy clothes. Shoes are thirty francs and up. You can figure it out for yourself. With our help, however, many, many poor families can get along that would otherwise be destitute. Sometimes we can give a girl a suit which will enable her to present herself for a far b

being accommodated. The other day we had a little angel of less than two, a small refugee from Rheims with its father and mother. Her ears were pierced and supported tiny earrings. When in this war-time any one had the time and inclination to pierce that child's ears is one on me! Her father left our part of the Vestiaire a few minutes to be fitted to an overcoat in the men's department, and the child began to howl. I took it in my arms and rush

inundated with requests. After receiving a letter from a refugee the case is looked up by two field workers and reported at a meeting of the committee the following Saturday morning. A vote is taken as to what to do and how much to give if i

awful little monkeys and might better approach more nearly the vegetable kingdom, even if they were darlings-to see me tell some mother of ten that "her little Yvonne is large for eight," or that "Renaud has small feet for a boy of

cleanliness and filth, thrift and abjectness. I shall not stop to describe individual homes now, but I can tell you some of them are rare. In one home of about the same stratum as the Russian family Mother and I visited last Christmas, I stepped gingerly among the rags, coal-dust, food, and so forth on the floor, and went and sat beside the dirtiest but the darlingest child you ever saw,-blue eyes with black lashes, which always get me, you know,-but

appeared and whose mother has abandoned it. He is the star child, Marcel Pruvot, two and a half years, and I am crazy to adopt him. What would you say if I brought him home with me? Think of what one could make of his life; but, of course, I shall not. We sent a layette to one little mother. (My mother should see the layette department, stoc

allowed to recuperate here either at the Val de Grace or the Quinze-Vingt (big hospitals), and are then sent away, usually to the country to learn a trade or to rejoin their families, or both. They must give up their military clothes, underclothes, and shoes when they are discharged, and are given only the poorest kind of civilian clothes in ex

t aches twice as much, not only for them, but for the many gay ones who have conquered despair. One boy twenty-four years old was wounded in the leg and dragged himself along the ground half conscious, to find he was dragging himself toward the German trenches. At this point he was struck again and his eyes put out. He lay between the tre

all too well how at the age of eight I used to wriggle in Altman's when mother insisted on "getting an idea how they would go" by hol

nant, mon vieux! C'est vrai que tu vais te marier?" (I would like to have eyes to see you now, old fellow; is it true you are just going to be married?) Then they laugh and thank me "mille fois" and shake hands and wish me good luck. Sometimes I walk down the street with them and guide them along. I admire their m

f families, then the field work and the work for the blind. I haven't told about the Ouvroir because I am not well enough informed. We give employment to many women in making

omen's shirts and heavy union suits. These are great needs, but if there are any available just plain clothes,-dresses, suits, children's clothes, boy's trousers and sweaters, neckties, gloves, ribbons, stockings, caps,-send them. If Mother has any sewing-circle in New York or elsewhere at her command, I should like to use it as a part of the propaganda, if I may. I believe she suggested it. If they want to make anything, make aprons for boys and girls from four to fourteen years, the larger sizes from ten to fourteen being t

her looks, but the expression of her face. I consider it as much my duty to tell people at home what we need as to go to work every morning. If you could know how we long for packing-boxes to come from America. Sometimes when they do come t

le say, "It is awful how little I do for the war. I would like to do more, but I don't know just w

re adopted as "filleuls" (godsons) by "marraines" (godmothers), who take an interest and try and fill the place of family to them. Hundreds have been so adopted in America, as you know, but there are so many more who are quite forlorn. I heard of one boy the other day who was the only one in his regiment who never got anything, but tried to go away by himself when he knew it was time for the mail to come. I adopted him like a shot. I have since taken three more temporarily, as I can't

age once a month. I shall keep these men from now until I hear from you an

ere, and we get really more tired than I ever thought it possible to get and we waste so much time walking. There are many places where the trams and subways don'

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