parted from us I received a letter from her:--

"Dear Sir,--May I ask you to take into consideration the fact that
by having ceased to shave you will in future be effecting a slight
economy in your daily expenditure? Might I also suggest to you
that during the remainder of the War you should make a voluntary
contribution to the national exchequer of every shilling saved under
this head? The total sum will not be large, but everything counts.
Yours is, if I may be allowed to say so, the finest beard I have been
instrumental in producing during my two and a half years' experience
in domestic service. I am now hard at work on my sixth case, which is
approaching its crisis.

Apologising for any temporary inconvenience I may have caused you, I
am,

Yours faithfully, EMILY JOHNSON,

_Foundress and President of the
Housemaids' Society for the
Promotion of Patriotic Beards._"

I never showed the letter to my wife, but I have acted on Emily's
suggestion. I often think of her still, her whole soul afire with her
patriotic mission, flitting, the very flower of housemaids, from home
to home, lingering but a little while in each, in each content for
that little while to be loathed and stormed at by an exasperated
shaver, whom she transforms into a happy bearded contributor to her
fund.