much
sorrow and grief in the land that it was the duty of all who could
dispel it, if even for a little space, to do what they could. I
remembered that poem of Ella Wheeler Wilcox--"Laugh and the World
Laughs With You!" And so I tried to laugh, and to make the part of
the world that I chanced to be in laugh with me. For I knew there was
weeping and sorrowing enough.

And all the time I felt that the spirit of my boy was with me, and
that he knew what I was doing, and why, and was glad, and that he
understood that if I laughed it was not because I thought less often
of him, or missed him less keenly and bitterly than I had done from
the very beginning.

There was much praise for my work from high officials, and it made me
proud and glad to know that the men who were at the head of Britain's
effort in the war thought I was being of use. One time I spoke with
Mr. Balfour, the former Prime Minister, at Drury Lane Theatre to one
of the greatest war gatherings that was ever held in London.

And always and everywhere there were the hospitals, full of the
laddies who had been brought home from France. Ah, but they were
pitiful, those laddies who had fought, and won, and been brought back
to be nursed back to the life they had been so bravely willing to lay
down for their country! But it was hard to look at them, and know how
they were suffering, and to go through with the task I had set myself
of cheering them and comforting them in my own way! There were times
when it was all I could do to get through with my program.

They never complained. They were always bright and cheerful, no
matter how terrible their wounds might be; no matter what sacrifices
they had made of eyes and limbs. There were men in those hospitals
who knew that they were going out no more than half the men they had
been. And yet they were as brave and careless of themselves as if
their wounds had been but trifles. I think the greatest exhibition of
courage and nerve the world has ever seen was to be found in those
hospitals in London and, indeed, all over Britain, where those
wonderful lads kept up their spirits always, though they knew they
could never again be sound in body.

Many and many of them there were who knew that they could never walk
again the shady lanes of their hameland or the little streets of
their hame towns! Many and many more there were who knew that, even
after the bandages were taken from about their eyes, they would never
gaze ag