But the keenness of the draft for the front could not prevent a certain heaviness of heart in those at home. The very necessity and the urgency of the call induced forebodings as to the future. The First Battalion had made a record. The draft would be emulous to live up to it. Not one of them, as they helped the happy warriors in their preparations and kept strong and cheerful faces over it all, but felt that they were most likely parting with the boys for good, and that when the good-byes were said they might well be the last ones. Mrs Dare especially felt bruised to the heart’s core. Con gone, and lying wounded somewhere,--and undoubtedly sorely wounded, for they had never had a line from himself yet. Ray out there in the thick of it, and any moment might bring word of his death. And now Noel plunging into the mêlée with a joyous zest such as he had never shown for anything in life before. And Alma and Lois on the tenterhooks of ceaseless anxiety. It was a time that kept the women-folk much upon their knees, and their hearts welled with unuttered prayers as they went about their daily work. A time, however, that was not without its compensations. If anxieties filled the air, all hearts were opened to one another in amazingly un-English fashion. Men with whom Mr Dare had had no acquaintance, made a point of coming up to him and congratulating him on his son-in-law’s safety in that hot night at Messines. They expressed their sympathy in the matter of Con and hoped he would soon have better news, and spoke admiringly of Noel’s pluck in volunteering so speedily for the front. And everywhere Mrs Dare and Lois and the girls went it was the same. The frigid angularities of the British character were everywhere broken down. The touch of common feeling evoked a new spirit of national kinship. What touched one touched all. But in varying degree. Pleasant and helpful as it was to experience this new feeling of kindliness and sympathy in the air, the hearts most vitally affected alone knew how sorely the war was bruising them. But, as Alma said, whenever she could rush away from her patients for a breath of home, “Work is the only thing to keep one’s thoughts off one’s troubles, and it doesn’t pay to dwell on them. Here’s another letter from Robert Grant. He says Con is progressing and hints that there is a chance of his being exchanged as soon as he can travel. I do wish we could hear from himself, if it was only just a word. I can’t help fearing he’s more hurt than Mr Grant tells us.” “It’s a great comfort to know that he’s alive, my dear,” said Mrs Dare, “--when so many have gone for good.” “Oh, it is. I assure you I am grateful, Mother. And yet I can’t help longing for just that one word from himself. If he only signed his letters even, it would be something.” “We must be thankful for the smallest sparing mercy in these days. It seems incredible that any of them should come back alive when one reads the accounts of the fighting.”