“Are you Tommy? But we know you awfully well.”
“Me?” Cecilia turned pink.
“Rather. We used to hear your letters.”
The pink deepened to a fine scarlet.
“Bob!” said his sister reproachfully. “You really shouldn't.”
“Oh, don't say that,” said the taller boy, by name Harrison. “They were a godsend—there used to be jolly little to laugh about, pretty often, and your letters made us all yell. Didn't they, Billy?”
“They did,” said Billy, who was small and curly-haired—and incidentally a captain, with a little row of medal ribbons. “Jolliest letters ever. We passed a vote of thanks to you in the mess, Miss Tommy, after old Bob here had gone. Some one was to write and tell him about it, but I don't believe anyone ever did. I say, you must have had a cheery time—all the funny things that ever happened seemed to come your way.”
Cecilia stammered something, her scarlet confusion deepening. A rather grim vision of the war years swept across her mind—of the ceaseless quest in papers and journals, and wherever people talked, for “funny things” to tell Bob; and of how, when fact and rumour gave out, she used to sit by her attic window at night, deliberately inventing merry jests. It had closely resembled a job of hard work at the time; but apparently it had served its purpose well. She had made them laugh; and some one had told her that no greater service could be rendered to the boys who risked death, and worse than death, during every hour of the day and night. But it was extremely difficult to talk about it afterwards.
Bob took pity on her.
“I'll tell you just what sort of a cheery time she had, some time or other,” he remarked. “What are you fellows doing this evening?”