Which is your boy's number? Tell me and I will strike out the
other." "Leave them both," she answered. "Who knows whether
my dear lad will be there to receive the parcel. If he is not, I want it
to go to some other Mother's son."

Affection means much to these men who are suffering, and they
respond at once to any sympathy shown to them. One man informed
us with pride that when he left his native village he was "decked
like an altar of the Blessed Virgin on the first of May." In
other words, covered with flowers.

There are but few lonely soldiers now, since those who have no
families to write to them receive letters and parcels from the
Godmothers who have adopted them. The men anxiously await
the news of their adopted relatives and spend hours writing replies.
They love to receive letters, but, needless to say, a parcel is even
more welcome.

I remember seeing one man writing page after page. I suggested
to him that he must have a particularly charming Godmother.
"Mademoiselle," he replied, "I have no time for a Godmother since
I myself am a Godfather." He then explained that far away in his
village there was a young assistant in his shop, "And God knows
the boy loves France, but both his lungs are touched, so they
won't take him, but I write and tell him that the good God has given
me strength for two, that I fight for him and for myself, and that we
are both doing well for France." I went back in imagination to the
village. I could see the glint in the boy's eyes, realised how the
blood pulsed quicker through his veins at the sight of, not the
personal pronoun "I" in the singular, but the plural "We are doing