And all over the country she is continually busy making munitions.
As for the myriad nurses in the hospitals here and abroad, who guard the precarious flame of life and dress wounds and cheer the sick—they do nothing new. That has always, been woman's mission. But of course there are countless more nurses than there were two years ago, before the cataclysm.
Wherever he sees one of the new citizens, or whenever he hears fresh stories of their address and ability, Mr. Punch is proud and delighted. "It's almost worth having a war," he will say, "to prove what stuff our women are made of." But, always the most chivalrous of men, "Not that it wanted proof," he will add.
And then, the other day, finding several representatives of the new citizenship resting in their luncheon hour, Mr. Punch, taking all his courage into his venerable hands, ventured to chat a little with them (for of course he would not dare to interrupt them when they were at work), in order to find out how they would be now filling their time were there none of these novel and pressing War duties.
But the remarkable thing is that none of them quite knew. They could not remember. All they were certain of amid the haze was the very distinct conviction that, whatever it was, they would not then have been so happy as they now were.
"Well, my dears," said Mr. Punch, laughing, "never mind about what you might have been doing. The important thing is what you are doing, and when I think of that it makes my eyes glisten, I am so proud of you. Perhaps now and then in the past I may have been a little chaffing about some of your foibles, and even about some of your aspirations; but I never doubted how splendid you were at heart; I never for a moment supposed you would be anything but ready and keen when the hour of need struck. And I was right, bless your spirited hearts! I was right. For here you are, filling the men's places, so that they can be the more free to go and fight for us, and doing it all smilingly and cleverly as though you'd never done anything else. I think it's magnificent. I'm an old man and I've seen a great many things in my time, but I've never seen anything better or anything that gave me more pleasure."
"Oh, no, Mr. Punch," said one of the new citizens—rather a pretty one, too—"you're not really old."
"No! no!" cried the others. "You're very kind and sweet," said Mr. Punch, "but you're wrong. I am old, very old—in fact just three quarters of a century old; and in proof of that let me hand you my
One Hundred and Fiftieth Volume."
