our hearts in our eyes for that day which
conies after to-morrow. Meanwhile we plod on determinedly, hoping for
the hidden glory.

Yours very lovingly,
Con.

XLV

February 3rd, 1917.

Dear Misses W.:

You were very kind to remember me at Christmas. _Seventeen_ was read
with all kinds of gusto by all my brother officers. It's still being
borrowed.

I've been back from leave a few days now and am settling back to
business again. It was a trifle hard after over-eating and undersleeping
myself for nine days, and riding everywhere with my feet up in taxis. I
was the wildest little boy. Here it's snowy and bitter. We wear scarves
round our ears to keep the frost away and dream of fires a mile high.
All I ask, when the war is ended, is to be allowed to sit asleep in a
big armchair and to be left there absolutely quiet. Sleep, which we
crave so much at times, is only death done up in sample bottles. Perhaps
some of these very weary men who strew our battlefields are glad to lie
at last at endless leisure.

Good-bye, and thank you.

Yours very sincerely,
Con.

XLVI

February 4th, 1917.

My Dearest Mother:

Somewhere in the distance I can hear a piano going and men's voices
singing A Perfect Day. It's queer how music creates a world for you in
which you are not, and makes you dreamy. I've been sitting by a fire and
thinking of all the happy times when the total of desire seemed almost
within one's grasp. It never is--one always, always misses it and has to
rub the dust from the eyes, recover one's breath and set out on the
search afresh. I suppose when you grow very old you learn the lesson of
sitting quiet, and the heart stops beating and the total of desire comes
to you. And yet I can remember so many happy days, when I was a child in
the summer and later at Kootenay. One almost thought he had caught the
secret of carrying heaven in his heart.

By the time this reaches you I'll be in the line again, but for the
present I'm undergoing a special course of training. You can't hear the
most distant sound of guns, and if it wasn't for the pressure of study,
similar to that at _Kingston_, one would be very rested.

Sunday of all days is the one when I remember you most. You're just
sitting down to mid-day dinner,--I've made the calculation for
difference of time. You're probably saying