.A. VIGNETTE FROM THE FRONT.—MME, ORAVATTE.
[To rim toms or TOM ..arscrrios..]
Siu,—Every one who has been in a certain part of France will know the busy town of A—. It is a busy town still, although there are rude and sudden interruptions at times, as, for instance, when a week or two ago it started to rain very heavily one morning, and for fifteen minutes the downpour kept on, then suddenly ceased: a senseless and brutal rain of bursting iron that killed six civilians and one soldier, and made much mesa in many houses. As soon as it was over I drove into the town, and was pleased to find the door of Mule. Cravatte's shop still open, and Madame herself smiling sensual within. "Vona n'avez pas recud'obus, Madame, ce matin F" I asked after the mutual salutation, in my best French. "Main oni, Monsieur, fen ai recu on gros dans le jardin," with which she offered to conduct me to see the hole and to hunt for souvenirs. The shell had come through the neighbour's roof and perforated Madame's garden wall, making a hole quite big enough for the neighbour's dog to come through, so it was deemed well to lay bold of a broom as we passed through the kitchen, to use in defence. "I was just going out with food for my chickens," said Madame, "when, tiene ! the shell comes and bursts, and I run back. Tiensl o'est bizarre!" Luckily this shell was like many others, and it did very little damage. It was a very old one, dated 1891, and it expired with something more like a weary sigh than an explosion.
I had ordered a few articles from Mme. Cravatte, and as they delayed in arriving I paid a few more visits to her shop. Only a day or two ago, just out of cussedness, the Bosch gunners sent a dozen or so shells into the city. Madame told me about it, for one shell burst within fifty mares of where she stood. "What do you think I did!'" she asked me. 'When I saw the shell burst and the shrapnel fly I opened my parapluie and took shelter under ill" And she burst into laughter, in which I joined.
But Madame has another side. I found her on another occasion searching among the silk handkerchiefs, ties, pipes, cigar-easea, Ac., and other goods that strew her counters, and from her frowns I read her displeasure. "Yes, Monsieur," she said by way of explanation, "last night six soldiers came in and began to handle the things here. I took a silk hand. kerchief out of the sleeve of one of them, and told him that he was mechant' to take my things, and now I miss a lot of goods. But what can one say!, There are bad as well as good everywhere." I was venting indignant words against the rogues that at such a time dared to rob a woman when Madame silenced me. "Don't think," she said, "it puts me against your soldiers one little bit. Not at alL There are bad as well as good everywhere. I don't bear them any grudge. Listen: Last night one of your poor Tommies fell down drunk on the pavement. I think he was weak from being in the trenches, and he was very young. I don't think be had bad anything stronger than bottled beer, and that on an empty stomach, pauvre garcon! If he bad been caught he would have been put 'sous he fer.' And he was very young and inexperienced. So I took him in and led him upstairs and put him to bed; and this morning at four o'clock I woke him up, gave him a good breakfast on eggs and coffee, and saw him safely through the door, pauvre garcon !" I read Madame a little homily upon the need for maintaining the strictest discipline in the British Army; but in my heart I found a corner had opened to store a memory of a noble
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