Christmas with nobody to do
anything for him."

"What can we do?" said Miss Willmot.

"I can't do anything, of course," said Digby, "but I thought you might."

"I don't see what I can do."

"Well, try," said Digby. "If you'd seen the poor fellow---- But you'll
do something for him, won't you?"

Digby had a fine faith in Miss Willmot's power to do "something"
under any circumstances. Experience strengthened his faith instead of
shattering it. Had not Miss Willmot on one occasion faced and routed a
medical board which tried to seize the men's recreation-room for its own
purposes? And in the whole hierarchy of the Army there is no power more
unassailable than that of a medical board. Had she not obtained leave
for a man that he might go to see his dying mother, at a time when all
leave was officially closed, pushing the application through
office after office, till it reached, "noted and forwarded for your
information, please," the remote General in Command of Lines of
Communication? Had she not bent to her will two generals, several
colonels, and once even a sergeant-major? A padre, fourth class, though
he had once been curate of St. Ethelburga's, was a feeble person. But
Miss Willmot! Miss Willmot got things done, levelled entanglements of
barbed red tape, captured the trenches of official persons by virtue of
a quiet persistence, and--there is no denying it--because the things she
wanted done were generally good things.

The Major opened the door of the kitchen. He stood for a moment on the
threshold, the water dripping from his cap and running down his coat,
great drops of it hanging from his white moustache. He was nearer sixty
than fifty years of age. The beginning of the war found him settled
very comfortably in a pleasant Worcestershire village. He had a house
sufficiently large, a garden in which he grew wonderful vegetables, and
a small circle of friends who liked a game of bridge in the evenings.
From these surroundings he had been dug out and sent to command a base
camp in France. He was a professional soldier, trained in the school of
the old Army, but he had enough wisdom to realize that our new citizen
soldiers require special treatment and enough human sympathy to be
keenly interested in the welfare of the men. He grudged neither time nor
trouble in any matter which concerned the good of the Camp. He had very
early come to regard Miss Willmot as a valuable fellow-worker.

"Padre," he said, "I put i