high sloped ceiling and glass front,
the place made a first-rate hospital.

It contained beds for fifty men; but on this day there were less than
twenty sick and crippled Tommies convalescing here. They had been
brought out of France, out of wet and cold and filth, with hurried
dressings on their hurts; and now they were in this bright, sweet,
wholesome place, with soft beds under them and clean linen on their
bodies, and flowers and dainties on the tables that stood alongside
them, and the gentlefolk of the neighborhood to mind them as volunteer
nurses.

There were professional nurses, of course; but, under them, the younger
women of the wealthy families of this corner of Surrey were serving; and
mighty pretty they all looked, too, in their crisp blue-and-white
uniforms, with their arm badges and their caps, and their big aprons
buttoned round their slim, athletic young bodies. I judge there were
about three amateur nurses to each patient. Yet you could not rightly
call them amateurs either; each of them had taken a short course in
nursing, it seemed, and was amply competent to perform many of the
duties a regular nurse must know. Lady Aileen Roberts was with us
during our tour of the hospital. As a daily visitor and patroness she
spent much of her time here and she knew most of the inmates by name.
She halted alongside one bed to ask its occupant how he felt. He had
been returned from the front suffering from pneumonia.

He was an Irishman. Before he answered her he cast a quick look about
the long hall. Afternoon tea was just being served, consisting, besides
tea, of homemade strawberry jam and lettuce sandwiches made of crisp
fresh bread, with plenty of butter; and certain elderly ladies had just
arrived, bringing with them, among other contributions, sheaves of
flowers and a dogcart loaded with hothouse fruit and a dozen loaves of
plumcake, which last were still hot from the oven and which radiated a
mouth-watering aroma as a footman bore them in behind his mistress. The
patient looked at all these and he sniffed; and a grin split his face
and an Irish twinkle came into his eyes.

"Thank you, me lady, for askin'," he said; "but I'm very much afeared
I'm gettin' better."

We might safely assume that the hospitals and the graveyard of Maubeuge
would be busy places that evening, thereby offering strong contrasts to
the rest of the town. But I should add that we found two other busy
spots, too: the railr