This business accomplished, I thought I would call on a friend who lives
near by. She is middle-aged and rather sad, and spends her time pushing
trolleys about a munition works. Just now, however, I knew she had a cold
and couldn't go out. I found her on the floor wrestling with brown paper,
preparing a parcel for her soldier on Salisbury Plain. She adopted him
through a League, and spends all her spare time and pocket-money in socks
and cigarettes for him. She smiled at me wanly, with a piece of string
between her teeth, and I felt I simply must do something to cheer her up.

"I've brought you some chocolates for your cold," I said. "Eat one and
forget the War and the weather," and I handed her Bobbie's box. Her
necessity, as someone says somewhere, seemed at the moment so much greater
than his.

"You extravagant child!" she said, but her face lightened for an instant.
She admired St. George almost as much as I had done, but, though she
fingered the orange-coloured bow, she did not untie it, so I concluded she
meant to have an orgy by herself later on. We talked for a while, and then
I looked at the clock and fled for the hospital. She thanked me again for
the chocolates as I went; she really seemed quite pleased with them.

Two days later Matron collared me in the passage and gave me a handful of
letters and things to distribute. There was a fat parcel for Martha, the
ward-maid. I found her in the closet where she keeps her brooms, and gave
it her. Her eyes simply danced as she took it, first carefully wiping her
hand on her apron.

"It's from my bruvver," she explained. "'Im on Salisbury Plain. Very good
to me 'e always is." She stripped off the paper and gave a sigh of rapture.