renches to-day. They had a
poor little band and some foggy instruments, and a bugler flourished a
trumpet. I stood by the roadside and cried till I couldn't see.

* * * * *

[Page Heading: A LETTER HOME]

_To Miss Mary King._

FURNES, BELGIUM,
_27 November._

DEAR MARY,

You will like to know that I have a soup-kitchen at the station here,
and I am up to my neck in soup. I make it all day and a good bit of the
night too, for the wounded are coming in all the time, and they are half
frozen--especially the black troops. People are being so kind about the
work I am doing, and they are all saying what a comfort the soup is to
the men. Sometimes I feed several hundreds in a day.

I am sure everyone will grieve to hear of the death of Lord Roberts, but
I think he died just as he would wish to have died--amongst his old
troops, who loved him, and in the service of the King. He was a fine
soldier and a Christian gentleman, and you can't say better of a man
than that.

I feel as if I had been out here for years, and it seems quite odd to
think that one used to wear evening dress and have a fire in one's room.
I am promising myself, if all goes well, to get home about
Christmas-time. I wish I could think that the war would be over by then,
but it doesn't look very like it.

Remember me to Gwennie, and to all your people. Take care of your old
self.

Yours truly,
S. MACNAUGHTAN.

* * * * *

_1 December._--Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm and Lady Dorothy went out
to Pervyse a few days ago to make soup, etc., for Belgians in the
trenches. They live in the cellar of a house which has been blown inside
out by guns, and take out buckets of soup to men on outpost duty. Not a
glimpse of fire is allowed on the outposts. Fortunately the weather has
been milder lately, but soaking wet. Our three ladies walk about the
trenches at night, and I come home at 1 a.m. from the station. The men
of our party meanwhile do some house-work. They sit over the fire a good
deal, clear away the tea-things, and when we come home at night we find
they have put hot-water bottles in our beds and trimmed some lamps. I
feel like Alice in Wonderland or some other upside-down world. We live
in much discomfort, which is a little unnecessary; but no one seems to
want to undertake housekeeping.

I make soup all day, and there is not much else to write about. All
along the Yser the Allies