Every man, woman, and child got a treat or a present or a good dinner.  The wounded had turkey, and all they could eat, and the children got toys and sweets off the tree.  I suppose these children are not much accustomed to presents, for their delight was almost too much for them.  I have never seen such excitement!  Poor mites! without homes or money, and with their relations often lost—­yet little boys were gibbering over their toys, and little girls clung to big parcels, and squeaked dolls or blew trumpets.  The bigger children had rather good voices, and all sang our National Anthem in English.  “God save our nobbler King”—­the accent was quaint, but the children sang lustily.

We had finished, and were waiting for our own Christmas dinner when shells began to fly.  One came whizzing past Mr. Streatfield’s store-room as I stood there with him.  The next minute a little child in floods of tears came in, grasping her mother’s bag, to say “Maman” had had her arm blown off.  The child herself was covered with dust and dirt, and in the streets people were sheltering in doorways, and taking little runs for safety as soon as a shell had finished bursting.  The bombardment lasted about an hour, and we all waited in the kitchen and listened to it.  At such times, when everyone is rather strung up, someone always and continually lets things fall.  A nun clattered down a pail, and Maurice the cook seemed to fling saucepan-lids on the floor.

About 8.15 the bombardment ceased, and we went in to a cheery dinner—­soup, turkey, and plum-pudding, with crackers and speeches.  I believe no one would have guessed we had been a bit “on the stretch.”

At 9.30 I went to the station.  It was very melancholy.  No one was there but myself.  The fires were out, or smoking badly.  Everyone had been scared to death by the shells, and talked of nothing else, whereas shells should be forgotten directly.  I got things in order as soon as I could and the wounded in the train got their hot soup and coffee as usual, which was a satisfaction.  Then I came home alone at midnight—­keeping as near the houses as I could because of possible shells—­and so to bed, very cold, and rather too inclined to think about home.

26 December.—­Went to the station.  Oddly enough, very few wounded were there, so I came away, and had my first day at home.  I got a little oil-stove put in my room, wrote letters, tidied up, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

A Taube came over and hovered above Furnes, and dropped bombs.  I was at the Villa, and the family of Joos and I stood and watched it, and a nasty dangerous moth it looked away up in the sky.  Presently it came over our house, so we went down to the kitchen.  A few shots were fired, but the Taube was far too high up to be hit.  Max, the Joos’ cousin, went out and “tirait,” to the admiration of the women-kind, and then, of course, “Papa” had to have a try.  The two men, with their little gun and their talk and gesticulations, lent a queer touch of comic opera to the scene.  The garden was so small, the men in their little hats were so suggestive of the “broken English” scene on the stage, that one could only stand and laugh.