g--and prisoners are allowed to write. Oh, my
George!--my George!'

It was with a leap of ecstasy that yet was pain, that she imagined to
herself the coming of the first word from him. Prisoners' letters came
regularly--no doubt of that. Why, the landlady at the hotel had a son
who was at Ruhleben, and she heard once a month. Nelly pictured the
moment when the letter would be in her hand, and she would be looking at
it. Oh, no doubt it wouldn't be addressed by him! By the nurse
perhaps--a German nurse--or another patient. He mightn't be well
enough. All the same, the dream filled her eyes with tears, that for a
moment eased the burning within.

Her life was now made up of such moments and dreams. On the whole, what
held her most was the fierce refusal to think of him as dead. That
morning, in dressing, among the clothes they had hurriedly brought with
them from Westmorland, she saw a thin black dress--a useful stand-by in
the grime of London--and lifted her hands to take it from the peg on
which it hung. Only to recoil from it with horror. _That_--never! And
she had dressed herself with care in a coat and skirt of rough blue
tweed that George had always liked; scrupulously putting on her little
ornaments, and taking pains with her hair. And at every step of the
process, she seemed to be repelling some attacking force; holding a door
with all her feeble strength against some horror that threatened to come
in.

The room in which she stood was small and cheerless; but it was all they
could afford. Bridget frankly hated the ugliness and bareness of it;
hated the dingy hotel, and the slatternly servants, hated the boredom of
the long waiting for news to which apparently she was to be committed,
if she stayed on with Nelly. She clearly saw that public opinion would
expect her to stay on. And indeed she was not without some natural pity
for her younger sister. There were moments when Nelly's state caused her
extreme discomfort--even something more. But when they occurred, she
banished them as soon as possible, and with a firm will, which grew the
firmer with exercise. It was everybody's duty to keep up their spirits
and not to be beaten down by this abominable war. And it was a special
duty for those who hated the war, and would stop it at once if they
could. Yet Bridget had entirely declined to join any 'Stop the War,' or
pacifist societies. She had no sympathy with 'that sort of people.' Her
real opinion about the war was