"No!--No!--No!--You shan't work any more!" She turned her head wearily. "I can't make it out. _What's happening?_ Why are they all shutting down like this?" The old woman looked at her stupidly. The remote causes which made or unmade her unimportant existence were beyond her comprehension. "What's that?" cried Ann, jumping to her feet. "_What's 'e calling?_" The raucous shout of a newsvendor floated up from the street. Ann listened for a moment--and then, after a hurried search for a halfpenny in her purse, dashed out of the door and down the stairs. She reappeared after a bare minute, brandishing the newspaper, wild-eyed, panting. "Mother! Mother!" She could not wait to enter the door before commencing her news. "It's Peace! _Peace!_" She struggled with the unfolded paper, crushed it together again, searching eagerly for the magic headlines. "Here it is! Listen!" The old woman, equally all trembling eagerness, was standing at her side, pawing vaguely at the arm which held the newspaper. Ann read out the great news. "'_The wild rumours current during the past few days have received a startling confirmation. It is announced that an armistice has been signed on all the fronts. This undoubtedly means a general Peace. The end of the war has come._' Mother! it's all over! it's all over--and Jim'll be coming back! Oh, I can't 'ardly believe it! _It's all over!_ Oh, thank God--thank God!" "All over! My Jim! Safe and sound! Oh," the old woman commenced that sniffling weep common to the aged and the young. "I can't 'elp it, Ann--I can't 'elp it!--I must cry!" Ann dashed down the newspaper and flung her arms round the old woman in a close embrace. "Mother! Mother! I never was so"--and here a sob checked her speech also--"so 'appy in my life!" Face against face, the tears of the two women mingled--tears not of grief but of emotion for which there was no expression. Somewhere down the street church bells were ringing in joyous peal on peal. It might have been merely a coincidence of practice, but to the two women whose simple souls beat close together, in a swoon of intense feeling that obliterated the sharp outlines of environment, this happy rioting of the bells seemed a holy blessing on the moment. "Oh, Ann dear, Ann dear," said the old woman, looking up. "What a thanksgiving it'll be for all the poor anxious women!" "Oh, we're very lucky--we're very lucky. Jim'll be coming back. Think of it, mother!" They kissed one another as if each were kissing the man who would come back as son and husband. "We've got to keep it for 'im," said Ann. "All the little 'ome. An' 'e'll soon be back to work for us an' the baby, an' we shan't never be parted any more! Oh, mother, think of the poor women who won't 'ave no one to come back to 'em! When they see 'em marching by! Oh--we're lucky, we're very lucky!" The old woman stood staring out of the window in vague thought, her eye caught by the vivid red of the flags on the War Shrine.