e on the toothless mouth of one of her old
neighbours, hearing the cheers of the boys in the school round the
corner, knew that it was Peace. Her heart overflowed then, and,
withdrawing hastily, she sat down on a shiny chair in her little empty
parlour. Her face crumpled suddenly, the tears came welling forth; she
cried and cried, alone in the little cold room. She cried from relief
and utter thankfulness. It was over--over at last! The long waiting--the
long misery--the yearning for her "man"--the grieving for all those poor
boys in the mud, and the dreadful shell holes, and the fighting, the
growing terror of anxiety for her own boy--over, all over! Now they
would let Max out, now David would come back from the army; and people
would not be unkind and spiteful to her and the children any more!

For all she was a Cockney, hers was a simple soul, associating Peace
with Good-will. Drying her tears, she stood up, and in the little cheap
mirror above the empty grate looked at her face. It was lined, and she
was grey; for more than two years her man had not seen her without her
hat. What ever would he say? And she rubbed and rubbed her cheeks,
trying to smooth them out. Then her conscience smote her, and she ran
upstairs to the back bedroom, where the deaf aunt lay. Taking up the
little amateur ear trumpet which Gerhardt himself had made for "auntie,"
before he was taken away, she bawled into it:

"Peace, Auntie; it's Peace! Think of that. It's Peace!"

"What's that?" answered the deaf woman.

"It's Peace, Auntie, Peace."

The deaf lady roused herself a little, and some meaning came into the
lack-lustre black eyes of her long, leathery face. "You don't say," she
said in her wooden voice, "I'm so hungry, Dolly, isn't it time for my
dinner?"

"I was just goin' to get it, dearie," replied Mrs. Gerhardt, and hurried
back downstairs with her brain teeming, to make the deaf woman's bowl of
bread, pepper, salt, and onions.

All that day and the next and the next she saw the bright side of things
with almost dazzling clearness, waiting to visit her "prince" in his
Palace. She found him in a strange and pitiful state of nerves. The news
had produced too intense and varied emotions among those crowded
thousands of men buried away from normal life so long. She spent all her
hour and a half trying desperately to make him see the bright side, but
he was too full of fears and doubts, and she went away smiling, but
utterly exhaust