ches?"
she inquired.

"Not half so frightened as I was this afternoon, Your Majesty," I
replied.

She passed on, smiling.

* * * * *

And now, when enough time has elapsed to give perspective to my first
impression of Queen Mary of England, I find that it loses nothing by
this supreme test. I find that I remember her, not as a great Queen
but as a gracious and kindly woman, greatly beloved by those of her
immediate circle, totally without arrogance, and of a simplicity of
speech and manner that must put to shame at times those lesser lights
that group themselves about a throne.

I find another impression also--that the Queen of England is intensely
and alertly mental--alive to her finger tips, we should say in
America. She has always been active. Her days are crowded. A different
type of royal woman would be content to be the honoured head of the
Queen's Guild. But she is in close touch with it at all times. It is
she who dictates its policy, and so competently that the ladies who
are associated with the work that is being done speak of her with
admiration not unmixed with awe.

From a close and devoted friend of Queen Mary I obtained other
characteristics to add to my picture: That the Queen is acutely
sensitive to pain or distress in others--it hurts her; that she is
punctual--and this not because of any particular sense of time but
because she does not like to keep other people waiting. It is all a
part of an overwhelming sense of that responsibility to others that
has its origin in true kindliness.

The work of the Queen's Guild is surprising in its scope. In a way it
is a vast clearing house. Supplies come in from every part of the
world, from India, Ceylon, Java, Alaska, South America, from the most
remote places. I saw the record book. I saw that a woman from my home
city had sent cigarettes to the soldiers through the Guild, that
Africa had sent flannels! Coming from a land where the sending, as
regards Africa, is all the other way, I found this exciting. Indeed,
the whole record seems to show how very small the earth is, and how
the tragedy of a great war has overcome the barriers of distance and
time and language.

From this clearing house in England's historic old palace, built so
long ago by Bluff King Hal, these offerings of the world are sent
wherever there is need, to Servia, to Egypt, to South and East Africa,
to the Belgians. The work was instituted by the Quee