It's been raining all day and I got very wet this morning. Don't you wish I had caught some quite harmless sickness? When I didn't want to go back to school, I used to wet my socks purposely in order to catch cold, but the cold always avoided me when I wanted it badly. How far away the childish past seems--almost as though it never happened. And was I really the budding novelist in New York? Life has become so stern and scarlet--and so brave. From my window I look out on the English Channel, a cold, grey-green sea, with rain driving across it and a fleet of small craft taking shelter. Over there beyond the curtain of mist lies France--and everything that awaits me. News has just come that I have to start. Will continue from France. Yours ever lovingly, Con. VII Friday, September 1st, 1916, 11 am. DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER: I embark at 12.30--so this is the last line before I reach France. I expect the boys are now within sight of English shores--I wish I could have had an hour with them. I'm going to do my best to bring you honour--remember that--I shall do things for your sake out there, living up to the standards you have taught me. Yours with a heart full of love, Con. VIII FRANCE, September 1st, 1916. DEAREST M.: Here I am in France with the same strange smells and street cries, and almost the same little boys bowling hoops over the very cobbly cobble stones. I had afternoon tea at a patisserie and ate a great many gâteaux for the sake of old times. We had a very choppy crossing, and you would most certainly have been sick had you been on board. It seemed to me that I must be coming on one of those romantic holidays to see churches and dead history--only the khaki-clad figures reminded me that I was coming to see history in the making. It's a funny world that batters us about so. It's three years since I was in France--the last time was with Arthur in Provence. It's five years since you and I did our famous trip together. I wish you were here--there are heaps of English nurses in the streets. I expect to sleep in this place and proceed to my destination to-morrow. How I wish I could send you a really descriptive letter! If I did, I fear you would not get it--so I have to write in generalities. None of this seems real--it's a kind of wild pretence from which I shall awake-and when I tell you my dream you'll laugh and say, "How absurd of you, dreaming that you were a soldier. I must say you look like it." Good-bye, my dearest girl, God bless you, Con. IX September 8th, 1916. MY DEAREST ONES: