UNTIL THE DAY BREAK "The Germans have recaptured Premysl," said Susan despairingly, looking up from her newspaper, "and now I suppose we will have to begin calling it by that uncivilised name again.

Cousin Sophia was in when the mail came and when she heard the news she hove a sigh up from the depths of her stomach, Mrs.Dr.dear, and said, 'Ah yes, and they will get Petrograd next I have no doubt.' I said to her, 'My knowledge of geography is not so profound as I wish it was but I have an idea that it is quite a walk from Premysl to Petrograd.' Cousin Sophia sighed again and said, 'The Grand Duke Nicholas is not the man I took him to be.' 'Do not let him know that,' said I.'It might hurt his feelings and he has likely enough to worry him as it is.

But you cannot cheer Cousin Sophia up, no matter how sarcastic you are, Mrs.Dr.dear.

She sighed for the third time and groaned out, 'But the Russians are retreating fast,' and I said, 'Well, what of it?
They have plenty of room for retreating, have they not ?' But all the same, Mrs.Dr.dear, though I would never admit it to Cousin Sophia, I do not like the situation on the eastern front." Nobody else liked it either; but all summer the Russian retreat went on--a long-drawn-out agony.
"I wonder if I shall ever again be able to await the coming of the mail with feelings of composure--never to speak of pleasure," said Gertrude Oliver.

"The thought that haunts me night and day is--will the Germans smash Russia completely and then hurl their eastern army, flushed with victory, against the western front ?" "They will not, Miss Oliver dear," said Susan, assuming the role of prophetess.
"In the first place, the Almighty will not allow it, in the second, Grand Duke Nicholas, though he may have been a disappointment to us in some respects, knows how to run away decently and in order, and that is a very useful knowledge when Germans are chasing you.