more need for letters now." Some day soon, I pray and expect.

Tell dear Papa and Mother that their answers come next. What a lot of
love you each one manage to put into your written pages! I'm afraid if I
let myself go that way I might make you unhappy.

Since writing this far I have had supper. I'm now sleeping in a new
dug-out and get a shower of mould on my sleeping-kit each time the guns
are fired. One doesn't mind that particularly, especially when you know
that the earth walls make you safe. I have a candle in an old petrol tin
and dodge the shadows as I write. You know, this artillery game is good
sport and one takes everything as it comes with a joke. The men are
splendid--their cheeriness comes up bubbling whenever the occasion calls
for the dumps. Certainly there are fine qualities which war, despite its
unnaturalness, develops. I'm hats off to every infantry private I meet
nowadays.

God bless you and all of you.
Yours lovingly, Con.

The reference in the previous letter to a cross is to a little bronze
cross of Francis of Assisi.

Many years ago I visited Assisi, and, on leaving, the monks gave me four
of these small bronze crosses, assuring me that those who wore them were
securely defended in all peril by the efficacious prayers of St.
Francis. Just before Coningsby left Shorncliff to go to France he wrote
to us and asked if we couldn't send him something to hang round his neck
for luck. We fortunately had one of these crosses of St. Francis at the
ranch, and his sister--the M. of these letters-sent it to him. It