bags
ultimately, and they were quite annoyed!"

"They have some grisly notions about life and death," agreed
Wagstaffe, "but they are extraordinarily kind to people in trouble,
such as wounded men, or prisoners. You can't better them."

"And now there are five millions of them. We are all in it, at last!"

"We certainly are--men and women. I'm afraid I had hardly realised
what our women were doing for us. Being on service all the time, one
rather overlooks what is going on at home. But stopping a bullet puts
one in the way of a good deal of inside information on that score."

"You mean hospital work, and so on?"

"Yes. One meets a lot of wonderful people that way! Sisters, and
ward-maids, and V.A.D.'s--"

"I love all V.A.D.'s!" said Bobby, unexpectedly.

"Why, my youthful Mormon?"

"Because they are the people who do all the hard work and get no
limelight--like--like--!"

"Like Second Lieutenants--eh?"

"Yes, that is the idea. They have a pretty hard time, you know,"
continued Bobby confidentially: "And nothing heroic, either. Giving up
all the fun that a girl is entitled to; washing dishes; answering the
door-bell; running up and downstairs; eating rotten food. That's the
sort of--"

"What is her name?" enquired the accusing voice of Major Wagstaffe.
Then, without waiting to extort an answer from the embarrassed
Bobby:--

"You are quite right. This war has certainly brought out the best in
our women. The South African War brought out the worst. My goodness,
you should have seen the Mount Nelson Hotel at Capetown in those
days! But they have been wonderful this time--wonderful. I love them
all--the bus-conductors, the ticket-punchers, the lift-girls--one
of them nearly shot me right through the roof of Harrod's the
other day--and the window-cleaners and the page-girls and the
railway-portresses! I divide my elderly heart among them. And I met a
bunch of munition girls the other day, Bobby, coming home from work.
They were all young, and most of them were pretty. Their faces and
hands were stained a bright orange-colour with picric acid, and will
be, I suppose, until the Boche is booted back into his stye. In other
words, they had deliberately sacrificed their good looks for the
duration of the war. That takes a bit of doing, I know, innocent
bachelor though I am. But bless you, they weren't worrying. They
waved their orange-coloured hands to me, and pointed to their
orange-coloured faces, and laughed. T