ad
his house in Portland Place--to be accurate the Park Crescent end
thereof--seemed so conveniently situated, or its studio-laboratory
so well designed. "Air-raids? Pooh! Just about one chance in a
million we should be struck. Besides: can't think of that, when so
much is at stake. That's a fine phrase, 'Menders of the Maimed.'
Just what we want to be! No more artificial limbs if we can help you
to grow your own new legs and arms--perhaps. At any rate, mend up
those that are a hopeless mash. Grand work! Only bright thing in the
War. Now dear, are you ready with that lymph?"

And she was. Never had Linda been so happy. She overcame her disgust
at the sight of blood, at monkeys, dogs, and humans under
anaesthetics, at yellow fat, gleaming sinew, and blood-stained bone.
She was careful as a washer-up. The services of Mrs. Adams were
enlisted, and she was more deft even than her mistress; and the
butler, who was by this time a regular hospital dresser, greatly
admired her pretty arms when they were bared to the elbow, and her
flushed cheeks when she took a humble part in some tantalizing
adjustment.

"I'm some use to you after all," Linda would say when they retired
from the studio for a rest and she made the tea. "Some _use_? I
should think so!" said Rossiter (whether truly or not). And he
reproached himself that twenty years ago he had not trained and
developed her to help him in his work, to be a real companion in his
studies.

He was really fond of her through the winter of 1916. And so jovial
and lover-like, so boyish in his fun, so like the typical Tommy home
from the trenches. When he was overjoyed at the success of some
uncovered and peeped-at experiment, he would sing, "When _I_ get me
civvies on again, an' it's Home Sweet Home once more"; and ask for
the ideal cottage "with rowses round the door--And a nice warm
bottle in me nice warm bed, An' a nice soft pillow for me nice soft
'ead..." Mrs. Rossiter began to think there was a good side to the
War, after all. It made some men more conscious of their home
comforts and less exigent for intellectuality in their home
companions.

They went out very little into Society. Rossiter held that war-time
parties were scandalous. He poohpoohed the idea that immodest
dancing with frisky matrons or abandoned spinsters was necessary
to restore the shell-shocked nerves of temporary captains,
locally-ranked majors, or the recently-joined subaltern. He was far
too busy for