To-day has been warm, very warm and sultry, a day of surprises, beginning with the sudden disappearance of Monsieur X.'s trusted head clerk—a German boy who has been in the office for fifteen years and who knew every phase of the situation. What reason on earth could he have had for vanishing like that with all his personal belongings, not leaving one trace behind to show that such a person had ever been? Odd, but certainly done with studied thoroughness.

This afternoon we sat at the end of the garden by the little lake, listless and content to do nothing. The air was ominously still, as I remember it now, and the sun beat down through a yellow haze. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, huge drops of rain began to fall. You can imagine that we scurried up the path as fast as possible, past the old oak, and reached the terrace just before the very heavens opened in a flood and a great shaft of lightning, like a sword, swept down from the sky straight to the oak tree, crushing it completely. My hand trembles a little as I write tonight—it was the suddenness of the onslaught which unnerved me, I suppose, for it was a curious thing that there were no signs of approaching storm except the dull yellow light which we did not notice then.

There was a small dinner this evening and the table was beautiful as usual with old silver and candles which shed their warm light about—all lovely and luxurious. Monsieur R., M.P., did his best to draw out the political opinions of the party, but conversation, quite contrary to custom, was fitful. I think every one was a little unstrung by the afternoon's experience and the air even yet is full of electricity.

During one of the unwelcome pauses of the dinner a motor came panting up the drive and "Uncle Henri" burst in, virtually hatless and coatless, fairly bristling with political news and very much annoyed that something, anything, had wrecked his normal existence for a moment. But this something which has happened is terribly serious. The French trains are not going beyond the frontier to-night, and part of "Uncle Henri's" agitation was due to this fact as he had been obliged to walk a few hundred yards to get the Belgian train. In the excitement of such an unheard of proceeding he had plunged ponderously along in the dark and mud with his fellow-travellers and incidentally lost his luggage and his valet, the ineradicably English James. Nobody took in the seriousness of such a strange tale at first, for Uncle Henri is, before all, trÈs comÉdien. But why was he not in Russia as he was expected to be? Very good reasons indeed, for it appears that Austria and Serbia and Germany and Russia are about to jump down each other's throats, according to widespread rumor. France, too, is writhing in suppressed excitement which one cannot understand, with conditions growing worse every minute. It would seem rather left-handed for Germany and Russia to reach around through France to cross swords.

Timid little Madame N. asked if these things might indicate War. Everybody scouted the idea and ridiculed the thought of the hard-headed, common-sense, Western world doing anything so absurd. So we will leave it to the diplomats to settle the difficulty. I am glad that they can.