n of his task he
delegated to me. "Mrs. Mappin, this is our new orderly. He'll help you
finish the lunch-dishes." Private Wood then slid into his tunic,
snatched his cap from a nail in the wall, and vanished.

Mrs. Mappin surveyed me. "Ah!" she sighed--she was given to sighing.
"He's a good 'un, is Private Wood." The inference was plain. There was
little hope of my becoming such a good 'un. In any case, my natty grey
tweeds were against me. One could never make an orderliesque impression
in those tweeds. "Better take your jacket off," sighed Mrs. Mappin. I
did so, chose a dishcloth, and started to dry a pyramid of wet plates.
For a space Mrs. Mappin meditated, her hands in soapy water. Then she
withdrew them. "I think," she sighed, "you an' me could do with a cup of
tea."

And presently I was having tea with Mrs. Mappin.

I was afterwards to learn that this practice of calling a halt in her
labours for a cup of tea was a highly incorrect one on Mrs. Mappin's
part, and that my share in the transaction was to the last degree
reprehensible. But I was also to learn that faithful, selfless, honest,
and diligent scrub-ladies are none too common; and the Sister who
discovers that she has been allotted such a jewel as Mrs. Mappin is
seldom foolish enough to exact from her a strict obedience to the letter
of the law in discipline. Mrs. Mappin, in her non-tea-bibbing
interludes, toiled like a galley-slave, was rigidly punctual, and never
complained. Her sighs were no index of her character. They were not a
symptom of ennui (though possibly--if the suggestion be not rude--of
indigestion caused by tannin poisoning). She was the best-tempered of
creatures. It is a fact that if I had been so disposed I need never have
given Mrs. Mappin any assistance, though it was within my province to do
so. She would, without a murmur, shoulder other people's jobs as well as
her own. Having finished with bearing children (one was at the Front--it
was Mrs. Mappin who, on being asked the whereabouts of her soldier son,
said, "'E's in France; I don't rightly know w'ere the place is, but it's
_called_ 'Dugout'"), she had settled down, for the remainder of her
sojourn on this plane, to a prospect of work, continuous work. A little
more or a little less made no difference to her. She had nothing else to
do, but work; nothing else to be interested in, except work--and her
children's progress, and her cups of tea. Her ample figure concealed a
warm hear