ia yet may cut the cancer out--
Her heart is big enough--and turn about
Clean-limbed and strong and terrible as doom.

But, though she fail us in the final test,
Not there, not there, my child, the end shall be,
But where, without your option, France and we
Have made our own arrangements further West.

O.S.

* * * * *

DUSTBIN.

He dropped in to tea, quite casually; forced an entry through the mud
wall of our barn, in fact. No, he wouldn't sit down--expected to be
leaving in a few minutes; but he didn't mind if he did have a sardine,
and helped himself to the tinful. Yes, a bit of bully, thanks,
wouldn't be amiss; and a nice piece of coal; cockchafers very good too
when, as now, in season; and, for savoury, a little nibble with a yard
of tarred string and an empty cardboard cigarette-box. Thank you very
much.

"Why, the little brute's a perfect dustbin," said my mate; and
"Dustbin" the puppy was throughout his stay with us.

For six weeks did Dustbin--attached for rations and
discipline--accompany us on our sanitary rounds; set us a fine example
of indifference to shell fire, even to the extent of attempting
to catch spent shrapnel as it fell; and proved the wettest of wet
blankets to the "socials" of the local rats. Then, as happens with
sanitary inspectors in France, there arrived late one afternoon
a despatch requesting the pleasure of my society--in five hours'
time--at a village some twenty kilos distant as the shell flies. I
found I should have fifteen minutes in which to pack, four hours for
my journey, and forty-five minutes between the packing and the start
in which to find a home for Dustbin.

"Take the little dorg off you?" said a Sergeant acquaintance in the
D.A.C. "I couldn't, Corp'l. Why, I don't even know how I'm goin' to
take the foal yonder"--he glared reproachfully at a placid Clydesdale
mare and her tottering one-day-old; "and 'ow I'm goin' to take my posh
breeches--"

I left him hovering despondently over his equipment and a pile of
dirty linen.

We tried the M.G.C. We were on the best of terms and always had been;
they said so. They apologised in advance for the insanitary conditions
I might find; inquired after my health; offered me some coffee and
generally loved me; but they couldn't love my dog. The Cook even went
so far as openly to associate my guileless puppy with a shortage of
dried herrings in the sergeants' mess.

Passing