n'
as 'ow 'e would come back to me in the Spring, an' stay with me always.
It wasn't like partin', e' ses, 'im an' me could never do thet. I know
what 'e meant, now...."

"And what about Sherrie?" asked Sarah Brown.

"Oh, Sherrie, 'e never writes to me. But 'e promised too to come back in
the Spring, an' so 'e will, for there ain't no Boche bullet that can 'it
a magic man."

"It's springtime now," said Sarah Brown.

"It's springtime now," repeated Peony. "Ow, it's wonderful, seems like
as if I was gettin' too much given me, so as I can never repay. But I'm
keepin' count, I'm not forgettin'. It ain't long now before I'll pay my
debt. Come the middle o' May...."

CHAPTER IV

THE FORBIDDEN SANDWICH

While Sarah Brown's unenviable leisure was spent in acting as slave to
committees, she had at the same time a half-time profession which, when
she was well enough to follow it, brought twenty shillings a week to her
pocket. She was in the habit of sitting every morning in a small office,
collecting evidence from charitable spies about the Naughty Poor, and,
after wrapping the evidence in mysterious ciphers, writing it down very
beautifully upon little cards, so that the next spy might have the
benefit of all his forerunners' experience. Sarah Brown never thought
about the theory of this work, because the different coloured inks and
the beautiful writing pleased her so.

There are people to whom a ream of virgin paper is an inspiration, who
find the first sharpening of a pencil the most lovable of all labours,
who see something almost holy in the dedication of green and red
penholders to their appropriate inks, in whose ears and before whose
eyes the alphabet is like a poem or a prayer. Touch on stationery and
you touched an insane spot in Sarah Brown's mind. Her dream of a perfect
old age was staged in a stationer's shop in a quiet brown street; there
she would spend twilit days in stroking thick blotting-paper, in drawing
dogs--all looking one way--with new pen-nibs, in giving advice in a
hushed voice to connoisseur customers, who should come to buy a diary or
a book-plate or a fountain-pen with the same reverence as they now show
who come to buy old wine.

Therefore Sarah Brown's hand had found ideal employment on a charity
register. As for her mind, it usually shut its eye during office hours.
Her Dog David liked the work too, as the hearth-rug was a comfortable
one, and Charity, though it may suffer long