(At the same time, to keep our rations properly balanced I cut off the small plate of spice buns, our only cake luxury, which had been in the habit of adorning our Sunday afternoon tea-table.) And oh! the care with which we sewed up that first box of sympathy in a remnant of cretonne, carefully putting it on wrong side out (to preserve its beauty), and hoping that when he undid it he would notice what a charming pattern of purple dahlias and blue roses was on the inside, and how the cretonne was just a nice size to make up into a boot bag if he chanced to be needing a new one. * * * * * I pass over the next few weeks while we waited anxiously for the “lonely sailor” to materialise. He was engaged on board H.M.S. “The North Sea,” and sailors, we know, are subject to wind and weather. Abigail said she almost wished now that she had selected a lonely soldier; she could have had one if she had liked; but she had chosen a sailor because she thought he might wear better. The German sailors didn’t seem so pigheadedly bent on fighting as the German soldiers were. We did our best to keep the time from hanging idly on our hands by devising as much variety as possible for future menus, discussing the respective merits of cinnamon _versus_ cocoanut as a flavouring, and wondering whether after all we shouldn’t be more likely to buck up his desolate spirits (and more particularly his pen) if we sent a sultana cake next week, rather than gingerbread. I never before knew Abigail so prompt in her attendance upon the postman’s knock as she was during those blank weeks that accompanied the first half-dozen cakes. And then, when she was in a very slough of dark despondency, and constantly wondering who _had_ eaten them, since they had evidently never reached _him_, a letter arrived, and forthwith Abigail trod upon air—figuratively, I mean, not literally; in reality I never heard her so noisy; she went up and down, up and down the stairs past my study door where I was working, as though she had lost a step and was looking for it! Finally, when I heard her singing “Days and moments quickly flying” as she O-cedar-mopped some neighbouring polished boards, I knew something must have happened, and I opened the door and asked if anything was the matter? Whereupon she produced the letter from the bib of her apron—would have brought it before, only knew I liked everything to be perfectly quiet when I was working—and didn’t I think it was a lovely letter?