As I have said, and as my diary tells me, she came to tea on the
3d of March. She was looking particularly attractive that
afternoon. Shaded lamps and the firelight of a cosy room, with all
their soft shadows, give a touch of mysterious charm to a pretty
girl. Her jacket had a high sort of Medici collar edged with fur,
which set off her shapely throat. The hair below her hat was soft
and brown. Her brows were wide, her eyes brown and steady, nose
and lips sensitive. She had a way of throwing back her head and
pointing her chin fearlessly, as though in perpetual declaration
that she cared not a hang either for black-beetles or Germans. And
she was straight as a dart, with the figure of a young Diana--
Diana before she began to worry her head about beauty
competitions. A kind of dark hat stuck at a considerable angle on
her head gave her the prettiest little swaggering air in the
world. ... Well, there was I, a small, brown, withered, grizzled,
elderly, mustachioed monkey, chained to my wheel-chair; there were
the brave logs blazing up the wide chimney; there was the tea
table on my right with its array of silver and old china; and
there, on the other side of it, attending to my wants, sat as
brave and sweet a type of young English womanhood as you could
find throughout the length and breadth of the land. Had I not been
happy, I should have been an ungrateful dog.

We talked of the war, of local news, of the wounded at the
hospital.

And here I must say that we are very proud of our Wellingsford
Hospital. It is the largest and the wealthiest in the county. We
owe it to the uneasy conscience of a Wellingsford man, a railway