THAT FRIEND OF MINE
WHO, WHEN I WROTE HIM
ENDLESS LETTERS,
SAID COLDLY,
"WHY NOT KEEP SOMETHING
FOR YOURSELF!"

_I apologize to those whom I may hurt._

_Can I soothe them by pleading that one may only write what is true for
oneself?_

_E. B._

CONTENTS

I

OUTSIDE THE GLASS DOORS

II

INSIDE THE GLASS DOORS

III

"THE BOYS ..."

I

OUTSIDE THE GLASS DOORS

I like discipline. I like to be part of an institution. It gives one
more liberty than is possible among three or four observant friends.

It is always cool and wonderful after the monotone of the dim hospital,
its half-lit corridors stretching as far as one can see, to come out
into the dazzling starlight and climb the hill, up into the trees and
shrubberies here.

The wind was terrible to-night. I had to battle up, and the leaves were
driven down the hill so fast that once I thought it was a motor-bicycle.

Madeleine's garden next door is all deserted now: they have gone up to
London. The green asphalt tennis-court is shining with rain, the blue
pond brown with slime; the little statues and bowls are lying on their
sides to keep the wind from putting them forcibly there; and all over
the house are white draperies and ghost chairs.

When I walk in the garden I feel like a ghost left over from the summer
too.

I became aware to-night of one face detaching itself from the rest. It
is not a more pleasing face than the others, but it is becoming
conspicuous to me.

Twice a week, when there is a concert in the big hall, the officers and
the V.A.D.'s are divided, by some unspoken rule--the officers sitting at
one side of the room, the V.A.D.'s in a white row on the other.

When my eyes rest for a moment on the motley of dressing-gowns,
mackintoshes, uniforms, I inevitably see in the line one face set on a
slant, one pair of eyes forsaking the stage and fixed on me in a steady,
inoffensive beam.

This irritates me. The very lack of offence irritates me. But one grows
to look for everything.

Afterwards in the dining-room during Mess he will ask politely: "What
did you think of the concert, Sister? Good show...."

How wonderful to be called Sister! Every time the uncommon name is used
towards me I feel the glow of an implied relationship, something which
links me to the speaker.

My Sister remarked: "If it's only a matter of that, we can provide