t so that they shoot by ear. One sneeze would probably be
fatal. Not only that," she went on, turning to me, "but you know
perfectly well, Lizzie, that a woman of your weight would be always
stepping on brush and sounding like a night attack."

"Not at all," I replied, slightly ruffled. "And for a very good reason.
I should not be there. As to my weight, Tish, my mother was always
considered merely a fine figure of a woman, and I am just her size. It
is only since this rage for skinny women----"

But Tish was not listening. She drew a deep sigh, and picked up her
knitting again.

"We'd better not discuss it," she said. But in these days of efficiency
it seems a mistake that a woman who can drive an ambulance and can't
turn the heel of a stocking properly to save her life, should be
knitting socks that any soldier with sense would use to clean his gun
with, or to tie around a sore throat, but never to wear.

It was, I think, along in November that Charlie Sands, Tish's nephew,
came to see me. He had telephoned, and asked me to have Aggie there. So
I called her up, and told her to buy some cigarettes on the way. I
remember that she was very irritated when she arrived, although the very
soul of gentleness usually.

She came in and slammed a small package onto my table.

"There!" she said. "And don't ever ask me to do such a thing again. The
man in the shop winked at me when I said they were not for myself."

However, Aggie is never angry for any length of time, and a moment later
she was remarking that Mr. Wiggins had always been a smoker, and that
one of his workmen had blamed his fatal accident on the roof to smoke
from his pipe getting into his eyes.

Shortly after that I was surprised to find her in tears.

"I was just thinking, Lizzie," she said. "What if Mr. Wiggins had lived,
and we had had a son, and he had decided to go and fight!"

She then broke down and sobbed violently, and it was some time before I
could calm her. Even then it was not the fact that she had no son which
calmed her.

"Of course I'm silly, Lizzie," she said. "I'll stop now. Because of
course they don't _all_ get killed, or even wounded. He'd probably come
out all right, and every one says the training is fine for them."

Charlie Sands came in shortly after, and having kissed us both and tried
on a night shirt I was making for the Red Cross, and having found the
cookie jar in the pantry and brought it into my sitting room, sat down