n't see her plait, and she might be quite grown-up. Have you a book to
paste your photos in?"

"Not yet. I must put that down in my birthday list."

"I believe I have one upstairs that I can give you. It's somewhere in my
cupboard. I'll go and look for it."

"Oh, let me come with you!" chirruped Dona, running after her cousin.

Marjorie stayed in the dining-room, because Aunt Ellinor had just handed
her Norman's last letter, and she wanted to read it. She was only
half-way through the first page when a maid announced a visitor, and her
aunt rose and went to the drawing-room. Norman's news from the front was
very interesting. She devoured it eagerly. As a P.S. he added: "Write as
often as you can. You don't know what letters mean to us out here."

Marjorie folded the thin foreign sheets and put them back in their
envelope. If Norman, who was kept well supplied with home news, longed
for letters, what must be the case of those lonely soldiers who had not
a friend to use pen and paper on their behalf? Surely it would be a kind
and patriotic act to write to one of them? Marjorie's impulsive
temperament snatched eagerly at the idea.

"The very sort of thing I've been yearning to do," she decided. "Why,
that's what our S.S.O.P. membership is for. Auntie said she hadn't found
a correspondent for Private Hargreaves. I'll send him a letter myself.
It's dreadful to think of him out in the trenches without a soul to take
an interest in him, poor fellow!"

Without waiting to consult anybody, Marjorie borrowed her aunt's pen,
took a sheet of foreign paper from the rack that stood on the table, and
quite on the spur of the moment scribbled off the following epistle:--

"BRACKENFIELD COLLEGE,
"WHITECLIFFE.

"DEAR PRIVATE HARGREAVES,

"I am so sorry to think of you being lonely in the trenches and
having no letters, and I want to write and say we English girls
think of all the brave men who are fighting to defend our
country, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts. I know
how terrible it is for you, because I have a brother in France,
and one on a battleship, and one in training-camp, and five
cousins at the front, and my father at Havre, so I hear all
about the hard life you have to lead. I have been to the Red
Cross Hospital and seen the wounded soldiers. I knit socks to
send to the troops, and we want to get up a concert to raise
some money for the Y.M.