In looking back, I find it difficult to understand how it happened that folk managed to keep up an appearance of serenity and composure; I think there must have been tears on pillows, but nobody showed them to the world. For one thing, there was the example of the men out at the front. We all knew, from the start of the war, that they would fight well; few guessed they would fight so gaily. I used to take cigarettes and illustrated papers along to the hospital in Greenwich Road, and my friend, the Sister there, could always introduce some humorist who had returned grievously wounded perhaps, but rarely so much damaged as to be deprived of his diverting outlook; the exceptions were to be found amongst those who suffered from the gas poison first used by the enemy, and for these the world did seem wanting in attraction. When other subjects failed, and when the good-tempered men had exhausted jokes about water-filled trenches, and shells that sent earth into the soup, and mines that blew up unexpectedly, then there remained the visitors. These were always well meaning, but they often seemed imperfectly furnished with openings for conversation. (In my own case, I found that the carrying of a box of matches, and the offer of it to a patient who was about to smoke, proved a useful method of starting talk.)

"Where were you wounded?" was the usual inquiry, and the soldier could never tell whether the questioner wanted geographical or bodily information. "I am sure you must be dreadfully keen on getting back to the fighting line," was a remark that did not always gain an enthusiastic and affirmative answer. "How we envy you in being able to take a part in the struggle!" sometimes received a non-committal jerk of the head; the Sister and the nurses listened later to the comments on this aspiration. The sentence that remained long in the memory of the ward was one made by a wealthy woman from Blackheath. She arrived, with the obvious determination to say the correct, the tactful, the exactly appropriate word.

"And what injuries have you sustained, my man?"

"Well, lady, as you see, I've lost my left arm, and I've got rather an extensive collection of shrapnel in my right leg."

"Oh," she remarked, casually, "is that all!" And passed on to the next bed. The Sister declared that imitations of this visitor were popular for weeks.

I think women-folk showed to better advantage in the entertainments they arranged. There were large houses in the district, possessing extensive grounds, and parties of convalescent soldiers would be taken by cars, and a concert provided, and plenty of food, and if the men were not rendered shy by excessive suggestion of patronage, they enjoyed the outing, and it counted for restoration to good health. And some of them must have felt astonished to discover kindness where they had never guessed that kindness existed; I know, from what certain of them told me, that they would remember it for the rest of their lives.

"You can take my word for it, ma'am," said one, impressively. "The upper classes ain't nearly so black as what they've been painted!" He ruminated for a while. "Human beings," he went on, "that's what they are. Human beings, almost as good as the rest of us."

I felt myself drawn towards the north country-men, who had trouble in making themselves understood by Londoners, and who became puzzled by the methods of London speech. Four of these came from Northumberland, and when they were allowed to go out of an afternoon, they understood that, if the weather chanced to be erratic, and the Park gave no welcome, they could make their way to London Street, and rest in my shop, and look at newspapers, and smoke, and have high tea; the great attraction offered was freedom to talk amongst themselves with no interference. As each recovered, he went home on leave, and I treasure now, more than most things, a sheet of exercise book paper, written by a child living at South Shields:—

"Dear lady,

Thank you verry much for being kinde to my Daddy,

Your loving friend,
Milly."