To minimise the loss in case of accident these shops have been made to accommodate only ten or twelve workers. There was an explosion when I was there, and some of the workers were killed. The girls behaved with such quiet courage and endurance that one can hardly speak about it without tears. And every one of them insisted on being sent at once into another shop to take the same risks all over again. The true war spirit which danger and death only deepens and intensifies. But oh, Cornelia, more and more I feel that it is all wrong. If only all this splendid force could be dedicated to construction, instead of to destruction, why then our social vices and problems would melt like mist before the morning sun. But perhaps my vision is limited, so that I do not see far enough. Perhaps we are building better than we know in the midst of this mighty débâcle. Perhaps, who knows,—the work of national reconstruction through the discipline, the sorrow and the pain of its individual units has already begun. *XII* Your last letter gave me so much to think about, that I have had to put off answering it day after day. Have you observed that those who wait for the convenient season, never, somehow come up with it? The time to answer letters is when you get them, though there may be some danger lurking in that admirable habit. For instance, if you get one which causes your dander to be "riz," it is better to wait for the cooling process. Disasters have been averted, especially in business, by the counsel of patience. How often have I had to get surreptitious hold of letters written by Himself and keep them over till he said, "I wish I hadn’t sent that. Why did you let me?" Then I produce it and all is well. But sometimes I have been too late, or he wouldn’t let me intervene. Then sometimes it was the right thing for the bomb to be thrown. Peace at any price is not the best always; it can be the very worst. And now he is away where there are no letters to answer, not even mine. I haven’t had a message of any kind for six weeks—I don’t even know where he is. We live through these things. Thousands of women are eating their hearts out all over the world, just as I am. It is the price of war. What you tell me about your Anne fills me, not with your disquiet, but with an understanding sympathy. You are feeling a little as I felt when I realised that for a time I had lost the Boy. The period extended over quite a few years from the second year of his school life. The first year he was nothing but a homesick little chap, needing his mother dreadfully. Then he began to stiffen up, his father standing like a comrade by his side.