up.  Leaving most of her luggage at the cloak-room—­it took her about three-quarters of an hour even to approach the receiving counter—­Vivie walked across to the Palace Hotel and asked the night porter to get her a room.  But every room was occupied, they said—­Americans, British, wealthy war refugees from southern Belgium, military officers of the Allies.  The only concession made to her—­for the porter could hold out little hope of any neighbouring hotel having an empty room—­was to allow her to sit and sleep in one of the comfortable basket chairs in the long atrium.  At six o’clock a compassionate waiter who knew the name of Mrs. Warren gave her daughter some coffee and milk and a brioche.  At seven she managed to get her luggage taken to one of the trams at the corner of the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique.  The train service to Tervueren was suspended—­and at the Porte de Namur she would be transferred to the No. 45 tram which would take her out to Tervueren.

Even at an early hour Brussels seemed crowded and as the tram passed along the handsome boulevards the shops were being opened and tourists were on their way to Waterloo in brakes.  Every one seemed to think in mid-August, 1914, that Germany was destined to receive her coup-de-grace on the field of Waterloo.  It would be so appropriate.  And no one—­at any rate of those who spoke their thoughts aloud—­seemed to consider that Brussels was menaced.

Leaving her luggage at the tram terminus, Vivie sped on foot through forest roads, where the dew still glistened, to the Villa Beau-sejour.  Mrs. Warren was not yet dressed, but was rapturous in her greeting.  Her chauffeur had been called up, so the auto could not go out, but a farm cart would be sent for the luggage.

“I believe, mother, I’m going to enjoy myself enormously,” said Vivie as she sat in the verandah in the morning sunshine, making a delicious petit dejeuner out of fresh rolls, the butter of the farm, a few slices of sausage, and a big cup of frothing chocolate topped with whipped cream.  The scene that spread before her was idyllic, from a bucolic point of view.  The beech woods of Tervueren shut out any horizon of town activity; black and white cows were being driven out to pasture, a flock of geese with necks raised vertically waggled sedately along their own chosen path, a little disturbed and querulous over the arrival of a stranger; turkey hens and their half-grown poults and a swelling, strutting turkey cock, a peacock that had already lost nearly all his tail and therefore declined combat with the turkey and was, moreover, an isolated bachelor; guinea-fowls scratching and running about alternately; and plump cocks and hens of mixed breed covered most of the ground in the adjacent farm yard and the turf of an apple orchard, where the fruit was already reddening under the August sun.  Pigeons circled against the sky with the distinct musical notes struck out by their wings, or cooed and cooed round the dove cots.  The dairy women of the farm laughed and sang and called out to one another in Flemish and Wallon rough chaff about their men-folk who were called to the Colours.  There was nothing suggestive here of any coming tragedy.