pital, and have the
motor-cars too. If they had to choose between hospitals and motor-cars!'

'Lots of people do!'

'You think Sir William Farrell looks like doing without things?' said
Bridget, provokingly. Then she checked herself. 'Of course I like Sir
William very much. But then _I_ don't see why he shouldn't have
motor-cars or any other nice thing he wants.'

'That's because--you don't think enough--you never think enough--about
the war!' said Nelly, insistently.

Bridget's look darkened.

'I would stop the war to-morrow--I would make peace to-morrow--if I
could--you know I would. It will destroy us all--ruin us all. It's
sheer, stark lunacy. There, you know what I think!'

'I don't see what it's ever cost you, Bridget!' said Nelly, breathing
fast.

'Oh, well, it's very easy to say that--but it isn't argument.'

Bridget's deep-set penetrating eyes glittered as she turned them on her
sister. 'However, for goodness' sake, don't let's quarrel about it. It's
a lovely day, and we don't often have a motor like this to drive in!'

The speaker leant back, giving herself up to the sensuous pleasure of
the perfectly hung car, and the rapid movement through the summer air.
Wythburn and Thirlmere were soon passed; leaving them just time to
notice the wrack and ruin which Manchester has made of the once lovely
shore of Thirlmere, where hideous stretches of brown mud, and the ruins
of long submerged walls and dwellings, reappear with every dry summer to
fling reproach in the face of the destroyer.

Now they were on the high ground above Keswick; and to the west and
north rose a superb confusion of mountain-forms, peaked and rounded and
cragged, with water shining among them, and the silver cloud wreaths
looped and threaded through the valleys, leaving the blue or purple
tops suspended, high in air, unearthly and alone, to parley with the
setting sun. Not yet setting indeed--but already flooding the west with
a glory in which the further peaks had disappeared--burnt away; a
shining holocaust to the Gods of Light and Fire.

Then a sharp descent, a run through Keswick, another and a tamer lake, a
sinking of the mountain-forms, and they were nearing the woods of
Carton. Both sisters had been silent for some time. Nelly was wrapt in
thoughts of George. Would he get leave before Christmas? Suppose he were
wounded slightly--just a wound that would send him home, and let her
nurse him?--a wound from which he would be sure t