We were mutually quite satisfied with the transference; she had recently had a sister enter the service of a ducal family, and I had found the effort necessary to keep pace with the duchess exceedingly wearing. Kind hearts may be more than coronets, but they don’t always show to such advantage, since one has to wear them inside. As we had parted with no recriminations on either side, naturally I begged Pamela to make my house “a home away from home” whenever she pleased, which she accordingly did; and it was on one of her many “runs in” that she had expatiated on the Guild in question, and induced Abigail to sample it. * * * * * And thus, Abigail had returned from the meeting moved to the very core of her kind heart by the harrowing details the speaker had related of fine, daring, courageous, and magnificent specimens of British and Colonial manhood, left desolate and uncared for, pining for a word of sympathy and understanding from someone in the home-land—a word that never came, alas! Abigail said it had quite put her off her supper that night, thinking of all those brave men, defending us and our homes right up to their very last breath—and yet, never a woman to get them a clean pair of socks or a hot meal when all was over; not a letter of sympathy, nor a card with a line on it (here cook told her that funeral cards had quite gone out), not so much as a word of encouragement from any relative under the sun, every woman at home selfishly engaged with her own concerns—— Why, it was a disgrace to the country that our heroes should be neglected and put upon by the women of the land in any such way! And please would I mind her sending off a cake as soon as possible? as of course she had adopted a lonely sailor, wouldn’t have it on her conscience not to; and cook was quite willing to make it, there was plenty of dripping, and we still had a fair amount of carraway seeds left, and they wouldn’t come as expensive as currants—cook’s cousins at the Crystal Palace liked carraways _quite_ as well as currants if plenty of spice and peel was put in. The fried potatoes had nearly _choked_ her, when she was telling cook about it all . . . no, not because she was talking with her mouth full; she meant that the very thought of those poor lonely men was like eating sawdust. The speaker at the meeting had said he was sure each one present had only to ask her employer, and permission would be given immediately and gladly for a cake or potted meat or some other little delicacy to be sent once a week, as a sign of sympathy and understanding, to one of these grand yet lonely souls. Of course I immediately and gladly gave permission for the concrete sympathy to be sent once a week, but stipulated that it was to be a cake; five shillings’ worth of meat, as per my butcher’s charges, goes positively nowhere when “potted.” I reckoned that a good dripping cake would give the desolate one a deal more sympathy for the money.