An Englishwoman's Home

e's postscript. I always knew him to be an understanding creature, but his know

ot sure whether it would grapple us to one another with hooks of steel or merely end in a polite parting with regrets on either side) that English husbands are not properly brought

m did not, and could not, apply to Scotch h

whether natural or acquired, he has gripped the essence of this thing when he calls separation the supreme test of the bond. I am going to w

ink I hear you say with the uplift

ration without any sinking of heart, or vague questionings, must naturally find it difficult to realise our point

rests I can't share, making shoals of friends, which is as easy to him as breathing the air, friends whom probably I shall never see. He can guess pretty well what I am abo

ive. I was at a war tea at a women's club in London the other day, and there met an old acquaintance I had not seen for some time. She was quite middle-aged-and had been rather dowdy, not paying

d me, and I had to

, retired, had gone back to professional work, which meant t

ly days which I was feeling so desperately. She look

red me. "In fact, entre nous,

" I asked breathle

ted to do, but could not. Nobody now asks me where I've been or what

doubt inflated by a new sense of his own importance because his country still needs him, to what strange and hostile atmosp

ack the clock. He'll have to

ions in the ho

is having the t

as she understands it. I have gone in and out without let or hindrance, none daring t

boys, I was asked whether I would go to a small forage camp in a God-forsaken place away up near Abbeville, beyond the British Headquarters. It was a

not be far, according to the map, but it took us till three o'clock in the afternoon to get there. We were shunted into sidings to let troop trains

s-she captured them all. Youth is quite invincible, and when its smile is sweet like hers obstacles melt like mist before the rising sun. If I had even attempted that wonderful journey through the war zone without her I should either have been shot as a spy, or

oat cut. These men were not soldiers, though they wore khaki, but rough east-enders, dock laborers, most of them, with lawless anarchic blood in their veins. They had spent the major part of their lives rebelling against law and order. They were the husbands of some of the women whos

n the men gathered into the tent to hear the w

ng through the haze of tobacco smoke and the reek of the oil lamp, that I was up agains

memories of home, though all the time I knew the kind of homes they had left, and how har

on with a scowling eye inquired whether he could have a word with me privately.

an. "Do yer 'appen to

king Road, the Kings' Highway to Dockland! I was even r

had no letters from 'er for over four months, and I carnt 'ear nuthink about the four kids nah, but a bloke wot lives dahn our street sends me word that she's sold up the whole bloomin' shoot and nobody knows where she is, and the kids is in t

particulars in the note book already bulging with behests, whic

by the very same temptations which made Dan's wife say she had no more use for Dan. Tasting independence of action and of purse for the first time, she lost her sense of proportion. With the well-to-do, it is t

raightened out and evened up, and the poor and the oppressed will have

is what the

e the po

ecast in the new wor

us will st

e house in order, sitting up late at night to cover cushions and put in all the fixings that make the real home. He was very polite, looking industriously at everything, and all the time his eyes were not seeing my poor little attempts at home-making-but something else far away. All he said was, "It's very nice, but

ndid thing which we are outside of, not

f the fierce arena where men are fighting and dying that Liberty m

towards the women who spoke proudly of their men at the front has died utterly. I don't want him at the fr

lyle, "gey ill to live with," cursing the waiting policy of the President, the ev

come, soon or late, when your roads and streets shall resound with the beat

is