y floors, yet it is so much
more comfortable than anything I have had yet that I am too thankful to
be here. There is a gas-ring in the kitchen, on which it is possible to
cook our food, and there are shops where things can be got.

Mr. Strickland and I are both laid up here, and Miss Logan nurses us
devotedly. Our joy is having a sitting-room with a fire in it. Was
there ever anything half so good as that fire, or half so homely, half
so warm or so much one's own? I lie on three chairs in front of it, and
headache and cold and throat are almost forgotten. The wind howls, the
sea roars, and aeroplanes fly overhead, but at least we have our fire
and are at home.

_17 February._--Another cold, wet day. I am alone in the flat with a
"femme de menage" to look after me. A doctor comes to see me sometimes.
Miss Logan and Mr. Strickland left this morning. There was a tempest of
rain, and I couldn't think of being moved. They were sweet and kind, and
felt bad about leaving me; but I am just loving being left alone with
some books and my fire.

I have been lying in bed correcting proofs. Oh, the joy of being at
one's own work again! Just to see print is a pleasure. I believe I have
forgotten all I ever knew before the war began. A magazine article comes
to me like a language I have almost forgotten.

_18 February._--This is the day that German "piracy" is supposed to
begin. We heard a great explosion early this morning, but it was only a
mine that had been found on the shore being blown up. The sailors'
aeroplane corps is opposite us, and we see Commander Samson and others
flying off in the morning and whirling back at night, and then we hear
there has been a raid somewhere. When a Taube comes over here the
sailors fire at it with a gun just opposite us, and then tell us they
only do it to give us flower-vases--_i.e._, empty shell-cases!

[Page Heading: SOME STORIES OF THE WAR]

Mr. Holland came here to-day, and told me some humorous sides of his
experiences with ambulances. One man from the Church Army marched in,
and said: "I am a Christian and you are not. I come here for petrol, and
I ask it, not for the Red Cross, but in the name of Christ." Another man
came dashing in, and said: "I want to go to Poperinghe. I was once there
before, and the mud was beastly. Send someone with me."

My own latest experience was with an American woman of awful vulgarity.
I asked her if she was busy, like everyone else in this place, and