@@@@"FRENCH FRONTIER SUCCESSES."
@@@@"GERMAN DRAGOON REGIMENT ANNIHILATED."
@@@@"ONE THOUSAND GERMAN PRISONERS
@@@@IN ALSACE."

Up to this strange, sinister week, Anna had contented
herself with looking at the pictures. She had
hardly ever glanced at the rest of the paper. She did
not like the look of English print, and she read English
with difficulty. But this morning the boy who had
brought the fish had said, not disagreeably, but as if
he was giving her a rather amusing bit of information,
"Your friends have been catching it hot, Mrs. Bauer;
and from what I can make out, they deserves it!"
She had not quite understood what he meant, but it
had made her uneasy; and after she had cleared away
breakfast, and washed up, she had sat down with her
paper spread before her.

She had looked long at a touching picture of a big
sailor saying good-bye to the tiny baby in his arms.
He was kissing the child, and Anna had contemplated
him with a good deal of sympathy. That big bearded
British sailor would soon be face to face with the
German Navy. Thus he was surely doomed. His babe
would soon be fatherless. Kind old Anna wiped her
eyes at the thought.

And then? And then she had slowly spelled out
the incredible, the dreadful news about the German
Dragoon Regiment. Her father, forty-four years ago,
had been a non-commissioned officer in a Dragoon
Regiment.

Yes, both mistress and maid felt wretched on this,

[[87]]

p086 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p087w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p088

v?