thought worthy. Life has suddenly become effective and worthy by reason
of its carelessness of death.

By the way, that Princeton man I mentioned so long ago was killed forty
yards away from me on my first trip into the trenches. Probably G. M'C.
and his other friends know by now. He was the first man I ever saw
snuffed out.

I'm wearing your mittens and find them a great comfort. I'll look
forward to some more of your socks--I can do with plenty of them. If any
of your friends are making things for soldiers, I wish you'd get them to
send them to this battery, as they would be gratefully accepted by the
men.

I wish I could come to _The Music Master_ with you. I wonder how long
till we do all those intimately family things together again.

Good-bye, my dearest M. I live for home letters and am rarely
disappointed.

God bless you, and love to you all.

Yours ever,
CON.

XXVI

November 4th, 1916.

My Dearest Mother:

This morning I was wakened up in the gunpit where I was sleeping by the
arrival of the most wonderful parcel of mail. It was really a kind of
Christmas morning for me. My servant had lit a fire in a punctured
petrol can and the place looked very cheery. First of all entered an
enormous affair, which turned out to be a stove which C. had sent. Then
there was a sand-bag containing all your gifts. You may bet I made for
that first, and as each knot was undone remembered the loving hands that
had done it up. I am now going up to a twenty-four-hour shift of
observing, and shall take up the malted milk and some blocks of
chocolate for a hot drink. It somehow makes you seem very near to me to
receive things packed with your hands. When I go forward I shall also
take candles and a copy of _Anne Veronica_ with me, so that if I get a
chance I can forget time.

Always when I write to you odds and ends come to mind, smacking of local
colour. After an attack some months ago I met a solitary private
wandering across a shell-torn field, I watched him and thought something
was wrong by the aimlessness of his progress. When I spoke to him, he
looked at me mistily and said, "Dead men. Moonlit road." He kept on
repeating the phrase, and it was all that one could get out of him.
Probably the dead men and the moonlit road were the last sights he had
seen before he went insane.

Another touching thing happened two days ago. A Major turned up who had
tr