_Sept. 3d_: This letter has been written at several different sittings, and the result is going to be pretty poor. Now that I have not such interesting descriptions to give you or accounts of adventures, I am almost ashamed to send on these dull commonplace letters. It is a glorious, cool, sunny day to-day, and the hospital is not very heavy. I have been off duty a while, sitting under the trees up in our compound, reading an _Atlantic Monthly_ story aloud to Ruth as she lay on a blanket on the ground. Her mother has just sent her some _Centurys_ and the August _Atlantic_. We are getting the _Scribner_, and Dr. Clopton brought me his August _Harper’s Monthly_, so we feel very rich. But for 69 American nurses these few copies won’t go very far. In a little while the band from a neighboring base depot is coming to play for our patients. I have been trying to manage this for some time, and at last the day has come. And to-night there is to be another little dance in our mess. All our tables have to be taken out, but we keep our guests after the ball is over, and make them bring the tables back and help set them for breakfast. To-night our officers are giving the party, and we are the guests, but in our mess, as that is the only possible place for dancing. We have had word from Washington that 30 more nurses are coming to us. We shall then lose our V. A. D.’s, for which I shall be sorry, for though they are more or less of a problem, the advantage of having an interesting group like them in such close contact outweighs any difficulties I may have with them. We are all wonderfully well, and everything is well with us. In spite of all that I say about bands and dances and the sun shining, there is always the other side. Almost every day we have a death, if not more than one. Night before last a poor boy died of tetanus, and just a few days ago we had the sad experience of helping a poor mother watch her son die, oh so hard. We had sent for her from England, and she was so glad to be here. She came every day from the Y. M. C. A. hostel, and sat by his side. He knew her when she first came. He had such terrible wounds, and he could not stand the awful infection of them all. She was here with him all that last night, and when he stopped breathing about three o’clock, Miss Claiborne, the Surgical Night Supervisor, took her away to the night nurses’ hut, a tiny place where they have their suppers at midnight. She made her some coffee and wrapped her in blankets and fixed her comfortably in chairs. The poor soul did not weep a tear. She slept till morning, then went back to her hostel, and slept all day, the Y. M. C. A. worker told us. The next day she came to get his little belongings. I took her down to the mortuary, and it was not until she saw the flowers Miss Watkins had put down there on him that she went to pieces. She went to the funeral that afternoon, then left, so full of gratitude to us, as though we had done anything. Sept. 3.