“ It is warmer, and there is a shade of green over the garden. Snowdrops and a few early primroses make a show of bloom and great fat buds are coming on the lilac trees. Soon there will be violets under the hedges. My lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Each morning Ross and I walk over to the cottage with sandwiches and Cornish pasties, eggs and things, and coffee hot as hot in thermos flasks. The two chars meet us there and Nannie and the Gidger come sometimes for tea. We all go home tired but happy in the bus at five o'clock. ”

“ Monica turned up yesterday, unexpectedly, in a motor-car. She stayed ten minutes and then dashed back to her hospital.
'Oh, Meg!' she laughed as she came in, 'why didn't you tell me the truth years ago? What an utter little fool I've always been, but I've found out that I love him after all.'
'Well, you'd better write and tell him so,' I said, and kissed her.
'I have,' she answered, blushing like a wild rose. 'Aren't I a bold, bad girl? Aren't modern women hussies? I'm so longing for his letter, Meg. Oh, you were funny! I'm not a bit patrician, am I? I adore cement!'
Dear old Monica! ”

“ He is so unselfish, so thoughtful, talks about the things that interest Uncle Jasper, and takes away that terrible blank feeling. He even laughs a little, though I don't think that his eyes have really smiled. There is a hurt look in them, as there was when mother died.
Every one is very sweet to me, but I am the most wretched woman on this earth! No, not because of Ross. How could I be for him, after seeing his face when he said 'Coming, Sir.' Although I know that I shall never lose the ache to hear his voice and see him in the flesh again, yet I could be at peace were it not for one thing. ”

“ The constant struggle to feel differently fags me out, but perhaps I shall 'feel better in the morning,' as Mrs Williams used to say.
When Ross came in to say 'Good-night,' he said,—
'By the way, Meg, how's the novel? Got a plot yet?'
'No,' I sighed, and thought that Nannie was right that time. There is no plot in women's lives just now. They only say 'Good-bye,' as I have done to-day. For, oh, this book begun as a joke is now no longer a book at all. The written words are just a mirror which reflects some pictures from that thing I call my 'life.' Each chapter is the reflection of a day. ”

“ There is to be no dallying with love beside a rippling and sequestered waterfall, alone with Michael, who, at intervals, would strain me to his heart. No, there will always be those two young men with us who are going to strain my muscles all the time. I am going up a 'chimney' for my honeymoon. I have had an ice-axe for a wedding present and a most amazing pair of boots If I love and honour Michael, and obey him and the other two young men, I may even go up the wrong side of a mountain some day! ”

“ I interviewed her in the boot cupboard at the hospital.
'You're a fool, Monica,' I said; 'you can't, even at your age, see farther than your nose. You've been so wrapped up all your life in family trees that you've never even seen the flower of Charlie's love.' (I got muddled up with Mr Williams's song. I felt somehow that Monica ought to be willing to lay snow-white flowers against Charlie's hair, and that she wasn't.) 'You've looked up so many pedigrees that you've never noticed his devotion all these years. What's cement when he's got everything else that matters. ”

“ Then very gently Ross told her about the poor blinded eyes while I kneeled beside her and tried to rub a little warmth into her ice cold hands.
'And I expect,' Ross finished up, 'that he wrote like this because he was half mad with pain knowing that he must give you up.'
'Why should he give me up?' she asked.
'Why, Monica, surely you see that it's the only honourable thing he could do, now that he's so helpless; don't you see, dear, every other man would do the same?'
'Then men are cruel,' I burst out. 'They never think the same as women do. ”

“ There is a window seat with cushions, where big people can tell small ones fairy stories in the dusk. There's a comfy chair for Nannie and a rocking-horse and doll's house, all presents from Aunt Constance, sent 'with love.'
Then in the Gidger's other room the same soft green, and all the pictures the small owner loves: that perfect Madonna of Andrea del Sarto, and a copy of Watts' 'Whence—Whither?' Do you remember that perfect baby, who runs out of the sea toward you, whichever way you stand and look at it. ”

“ We have been in Devonshire a month now, and still we do not talk of going back to Surrey. It is lovely to be staying with Aunt Constance, and I am trying to be brave and cheerful, and to go out in the village as I used to do. The Gidger loves the dear old cottage folk, and they love her, and it is perfect having father.
The Hickley Woods are just as beautiful, only my heart breaks when I walk about in them.
It has turned hot, even I am warm enough and don't need fires at night. This evening there was a most gorgeous sunset, the sky was all ablaze with emerald and blue and gold. ”

“ She is such a stately beauty, such a very great lady. She makes all the other women feel their gloves are shabby. Her white hair shines so that I always think it's 'glistering,' and her nose is quite straight, the kind you see in a cathedral on a stone archbishop, and her clothes are 'scrummy,' so really beautiful that you hardly realise them. They are part of her, and she harmonises with the background. Her tweeds are just the heather she walks about in, and at night it's only her lovely old lace that shows you where her neck leaves off and her shimmering cream satin gown begins. ”

“ After we'd got the place dry Ross said,—
'It's nearly one o'clock, Meg; come and have lunch in my room. I've got a thermos full of coffee and some perfectly adorable biscuits—the squashed fly sort.'
Ross really thought my ceiling might come down, so he rolled himself up on the nursery sofa, and I spent the rest of the night in his bed. I lay awake for some time groaning in spirit at the thought of the mess and muddle workmen always make, and wondering how much more of the roof was likely to descend on us. ”

“ Surely he knows by now that 'Home' for me is just that particular bit of mud in Flanders in which his dear feet are embedded, and that any place without him is exile, that life, till he returns, is merely marking time. I don't care if I am talking like a little Bethel.... Ross thinks it's a topping idea. Even Nannie didn't help me. When I told her, all she said was, 'But of course you will if Master Michael wants you to.'
I felt, as I sometimes used to as a child, that 'every one's against me,' and I decided to walk my devils off. ”

“ I slipped into the Intercession Service at the little church and tried to pray for Ross and Michael and all the others. War seems very near in England, only a few miles off—those guns—that one hears sometimes in the night. I thought as I sat in church of all the death and desolation, the suffering and the broken hearts and tears. A great horror of the war came over me and a great rebellion. Why does God allow such things? How can I think of Him as a beneficent Being when the world is swamped with cruelty, blood, and separation? I feel like Tommy Vellacott. I don't love God now. ”

“ I suggested a goat, but Ross is dead off that. He thinks the Stench and a goat will be too much for the S.P. and Dulcie.
I intend the Gidger to know all about animals and flowers and how they breed and propagate. Nature is beautiful and ignorance unlovely. So I shall not tell my little girl lies or half truths about sex, but shall unfold the facts of life gradually as she is able to bear them, so that her heart and mind may become as beautiful as her face promises to be. ”

“ At last I know the lesson that Ross learned by pain. I see what Charlie saw only when he was blind. I understand what father has known since mother died. Oh, the wonder and the utter perfection of this 'experience.' It links me up with all the others down the centuries who having found Him 'in a mist of tears' can glory in their pain. If only I could pass the lovely comfort of it on to some of those whose hearts are wounded, as mine is, inexpressibly and beyond all telling, by this awful war:—
He only takes away the ones we love if, in His all wise love, He sees He must. ”

“ Charlie Foxhill is home on leave and wired to-day, while I was out, to know if we could give him dinner and a bed to-night. Ross telegraphed to say 'No, but we can give you an apology for the one and a series of lumps for the other.' So dear old Charlie duly arrived—beaming. It's so nice to see all one's pals. He is as amusing as ever, and has the same quaint diffidence, and bubbles over with jokes and absurdities. ”

“ I have never really had a trouble, only that dreadful time when darling mother died, but then Michael came along so soon after that it seemed as if God had only taken away one love to give me back an even more perfect one. But since the war it seems to me that God is so relentless and so jealous. He won't share hearts. He will have all or none, and I am growing to feel that it must be 'none' with me. ”

“ Darling daddy! He'd die for the faith that is in him, but he regards his Lord's 'Judge not' as a command, consequently it is really rather pleasant to live with him.
'I think,' I remarked, getting up, 'I must go now,' so she rang for the Gidger.
'Well, and have you learned a hymn, child?'
'She's learnt four lines, m'lady,' said Keziah. 'She isn't very quick. Say them, miss.'
So the Gidger folded two small hands, shut her eyes in accordance with instructions in a way that set my teeth on edge, and chanted,—
'Go bury thy sorrow,
The world hath its share. ”

“ He stirred as the door closed on the orderly.
'It's Meg,' he said faintly and smiled. 'How sweet of you to come, how quick you've been, darling.'
The sister gave him a little brandy, which revived him.
'She's been so beautifully kind,' he said, as she prepared to go, then as she went she whispered,—
'Sponge his face and hands after the pain, and give him a little brandy when he is exhausted. I can do no more for him than you can, and he will love to have you to himself. ”

“ Though Charlie Foxhill is such a friend of Ross they are not a bit alike; Charlie is so diffident, Ross so sure of everything. But then Charlie has had one of those unfortunate 'Christian upbringings' that daddy calls only another name for spiritual slavery, when square parents try to shove their round children into square holes, and of course the children hate it and some of them go to the devil in the process. Mrs Foxhill actually insists on reading all her children's letters, and expects them to think and feel just as she does about everything. ”

“ At the end Sam handed Ross sardines on toast. 'What a thundering lot of hors d'oeuvres we seem to be having to-night, when's the dinner coming?'
'Savoury, sir,' said Sam.
'You don't mean to tell me,' said Ross, pushing back his chair and glaring at Sam, 'that I've had my dinner?'
'You've had what there was of it, sir.'
'Well, I'm jiggered. Why on earth, Meg, don't you make them cook more food. Really——'
''Tisn't her fault,' said Sam, still in the Hickley Woods, sticking up for me as he always did; 'she's told them times without number; it's no good blaming her. ”

“ He was back on his pillows and Monica was sitting beside him very quietly. All the tortured look had gone from his face and a great peace was there instead, and a great thankfulness in hers.
'Meg,' he cried, with his old laugh, 'how brazen all you modern women are. You never have the vapours like your grandmothers, never faint when you are pressed to name the day, as any lady should. Instead, you come and beg a chap to marry you when he's already said he won't in writing, and bother his life out till he says he will, just to stop the creature chattering. ”

“ I shall have heaps of colour in the covers and curtains. There are a few delightful things of daddy's for this room—a lovely old mahogany corner cupboard with latticed doors, and some bits of china to go in it, bowls and jugs and funny old cups without handles. There are also three beautiful chairs with rounded backs filled in with lattice work painted in black and gold; the gold is very faint and worn in places. The seats are cane and the front legs very spindly, the kind of chair one's heaviest male visitor will inevitably choose. ”