t give much trouble--"

He stammered as even the most audacious young warrior must do when
making so astounding a proposal. But I bade him not be an ass, but send
her along when he had to finish with her; with the result that for some
months my pretty little Phyllis has been an inmate of my house.
Marigold keeps a sort of non-commissioned parent's eye on her. To him
she seems to be still the child whom he fed solicitously but
unemotionally with Mrs. Marigold's cakes at tea parties years ago. She
gives me a daughter's dainty affection. Thank God for it!

There have been other little changes in Wellingsford. Mrs. Boyce left
the town soon after Leonard's death, and lives with her sister in
London. I had a letter from her this morning--a brave woman's letter.
She has no suspicion of the truth. God still tempereth the wind.... Out
of the innocent generosity of her heart she sent me also, as a
keepsake, "a little heavy cane, of which Leonard was extraordinarily
fond." She will never know that I put it into the fire, and with what
strange and solemn thoughts I watched it burn.

It is Christmas Day. Dr. Cliffe, although he has washed his hands of
me, tyrannically keeps me indoors of winter nights, so that I cannot,
as usual, dine at Wellings Park. To counter the fellow's machinations,
however, I have prepared a modest feast to which I have bidden Sir
Anthony and Lady Fenimore and my dearest Betty.

As to Betty--

Phyllis comes in radiant, her pretty face pink above an absurd panoply
of furs. She has had a long letter from Randall from the Lord knows
where. He will be home on leave in the middle of January. In her
excitement she drops prayer-books and hymn-books all over me. Then,
picking them up, reminds me it is time to go to church. I am an
old-fashioned fogey and I go to church on Christmas Day. I hope our
admirable and conscientious Vicar won't feel it his duty to tell us to
love Germans. I simply can't do it.

New Year's Day, 1917.

I must finish off this jumble of a chronicle.

Before us lies the most eventful year in all the old world's history.
Thank God my beloved England is strong, and Great Britain and our great
Empire and immortal France. There is exhilaration in the air; a
consciousness of high ideals; an unwavering resolution to attain them;
a thrilling faith in their ultimate attainment. No one has died or lost
sight or limbs in vain. I look around my own little circle. Oswald
Fenimore, Willie Connor, R