d.

"I wish 'em joy of their language," said Marigold. Then seeing that I
was mildly amusing myself at his expense, he asked me stiffly if there
was anything more that he could do for me, and on my saying no, he
replied "Thank you, sir," most correctly and left the room.

On the 3d of March Betty Fairfax came to tea.

Of all the young women of Wellingsford she was my particular favourite.
She was so tall and straight, with a certain Rosalind boyishness about
her that made for charm. I am not yet, thank goodness, one of the
fossils who hold up horror-stricken hands at the independent ways of
the modern young woman. If it were not for those same independent ways
the mighty work that English women are doing in this war would be left
undone. Betty Fairfax was breezily independent. She had a little money
of her own and lived, when it suited her, with a well-to-do and
comfortable aunt. She was two and twenty. I shall try to tell you more
about her, as I go on.

As I have said, and as my diary tells me, she came to tea on the 3d of
March. She was looking particularly attractive that afternoon. Shaded
lamps and the firelight of a cosy room, with all their soft shadows,
give a touch of mysterious charm to a pretty girl. Her jacket had a
high sort of Medici collar edged with fur, which set off her shapely
throat. The hair below her hat was soft and brown. Her brows were wide,
her eyes brown and steady, nose and lips sensitive. She had a way of
throwing back her head and pointing her chin fearlessly, as though in
perpetual declaration that she cared not a hang either for
black-beetles or Germans. And she was straight as a dart, with the
figure of a young Diana--Diana before she began to worry her head about
beauty competitions. A kind of dark hat stuck at a considerable angle
on her head gave her the prettiest little swaggering air in the
world.... Well, there was I, a small, brown, withered, grizzled,
elderly, mustachioed monkey, chained to my wheel-chair; there were the
brave logs blazing up the wide chimney; there was the tea table on my
right with its array of silver and old china; and there, on the other
side of it, attending to my wants, sat as brave and sweet a type of
young English womanhood as you could find throughout the length and
breadth of the land. Had I not been happy, I should have been an
ungrateful dog.

We talked of the war, of local news, of the wounded at the hospital.

And here I must say that we are