orderly; only the peaceful life of the farm that was going on yesterday.  Here a sound of angry voices interrupted her musings.  The cows returning by themselves from the pasture were being intercepted by soldiers who were trying to secure them.  Vivie in her indignation ran out and ordered the soldiers off, in English.  To her surprise they obeyed silently, but as they sauntered away to their quarters she was saddened at seeing them carrying the bodies of most of the turkeys and fowls and even the corpse of the poor tailless peacock.  They had waited for sundown to rob the hen-roosts.

Very much disillusioned she ran to the morning room and burst in on the Colonel’s dictation to his clerk.  “Excuse me, but if you don’t keep your soldiers in better order you will have very little to eat whilst you are here.  They are killing and carrying off all our poultry.”

The Colonel flushed a little at the peremptory way in which she spoke, but without replying went out and shouted a lot of orders in German.  His orderly summoned soldiers from the barn and together they drove the cows into the cow-sheds.  All the Flemish servants having disappeared in a panic, the Germans had to milk the cows that evening; and Vivie, assisted by the orderly, cooked the evening meal in the kitchen.  He was, like his Colonel, a Saxon, a pleasant-featured, domesticated man, who explained civilly in the Thuringian dialect—­though to Vivie there could be no discrimination between varieties of High German—­that the Sachsen folk were “Eines guetes leute” and that all would go smoothly in time.

Nevertheless the next morning when she could take stock she found nearly all the poultry except the pigeons had disappeared; and most of the apples, ripe and unripe, had vanished from the orchard trees.  The female servants of the farm, however, came back; and finding no violence was offered took up their work again.  Two days afterwards, von Giesselin sent Vivie into Brussels in his motor, with his orderly to escort her, so that she might deposit her valuables at a bank.  She found Brussels, suburbs and city alike, swarming with grey-uniformed soldiers, most of whom looked tired and despondent.  Those who were on the march, thinking Vivie must be the wife of some German officer of high rank, struck up a dismal chant from dry throats with a refrain of “Gloria, Viktoria, Hoch!  Deutschland, Hoch!” At the bank the Belgian officials received her with deference.  Apart from being the daughter of the well-to-do Mrs. Warren, she was English, and seemed to impose respect even on the Germans.  They took over her valuables, made out a receipt, and cashed a fairly large cheque in ready money.  Vivie then ventured to ask the bank clerk who had seen to her business if he had any news.  Looking cautiously round, he said the rumours going through the town were that the Queen of Holland, enraged that her Prince Consort should have facilitated the crossing of Limburg by German armies, had shot