Henrietta and I rather amused ourselves after dinner teaching the commandant and another officer halma, which was just then at the height of its popularity.  We had brought it over from London, where the whole society was mad over it.  We were staying in a country house one year where there were seven tables of halma in the long gallery.  The gentlemen rather disdained it at first, but as the game went on and they began to realise that there was really some science in it, and that our men were placing themselves very comfortably in their little squares, while theirs were wandering aimlessly about the centre of the board, they warmed to their task, and were quite vexed when they were badly beaten.  They wanted their revanche.  W. came in and gave a word of advice every now and then.  The others finished their billiards, came to look on, each one suggesting a different move, which, of course, only complicated matters, and they lost again.  Then some of the others tried with the same result.  I think we played five or six games.  They were so much pleased with the game that they asked us to write down the name and where to get it, and one of them afterward told my nephew, also a cavalry officer, that they introduced it at their mess and played every night instead of cards or dominoes.  It was really funny to see how annoyed they were when their scientific combinations failed.  The next morning was beautiful—­a splendid August day, not too hot, little white clouds scurrying over the bright blue sky, veiling the sun.  We started about nine, W., Francis, and I riding, the others driving.  There were a good many people about in the fields and cross-roads, a few farmers riding, and everybody wildly interested telling us which way to go.  Janet, my American niece, who was staying in the country in France for the first time, was horrified to see women working in the fields, couldn’t believe that her uncle would allow it on his farm, and made quite an appeal to him when we all got home, to put an end to such cruel proceedings.  It seems women never work in the fields in America, except negresses on some of the Southern plantations.  I have been so long away that I had forgotten that they didn’t, and I remember quite well my horror the first time we were in Germany, when we saw a woman and an ox harnessed together.

We separated from the carriage at the top of the hill, as we could get a nice canter and shorter road across the fields.  We soon came in sight of the farmhouse, standing low, with moat and drawbridge, in rather an isolated position in the middle of the fields, very few trees around it.  There was no longer any water in the moat.  It was merely a deep, wide, damp ditch with long, straggling vines and weeds filling it up, and a slippery, steep bank.  Soldiers were advancing in all directions, the small infantrymen moving along with a light, quick step; the cavalry apparently had been on the ground some time, as they were all dismounted and their horses picketed.