"Yes, on the whole very much. It's interesting, and I always enjoy being among a crowd. Masses of people attract me, and I've got the community spirit at present, and want to work with the hive." Avelyn looked thoughtful. It was not the kind of life that appealed to her at all. She loved Nature's solitudes, and the companionship of woods and streams more than crowds of people. To live in a hostel and canteen would be absolute purgatory. She hoped she was not unpatriotic. Then her face suddenly cleared. "I could go on the land when I leave school!" she exclaimed with relief. Mary Lascelles and Miss Gordon laughed. Avelyn's train of thought had been so evident. Palpably she was not attracted by what she saw. "Yes, you'd be doing your bit on the land just as much as in a factory," said Miss Gordon kindly. "It isn't everybody who cares to take up canteen work. Let's hope the war will be over before you leave school. You'll have several years more at your lessons yet, I suppose." The little country mouse was certainly turned into a town mouse for these Christmas holidays. Avelyn felt that she had never before seen so much of Harlingden, even when she had lived there. The Lascelles were very public-spirited people, who were interested in everything that was going on in the city and anxious to lend a hand in all schemes for the general good. They sewed national costumes for the Serbians, rolled bandages at the War Supply Depot, distributed dinners at the municipal kitchens, taught gymnastic classes at girls' clubs, visited crippled children, got up concerts for wounded soldiers, and organized Christmas parties for slum babies. They seemed to be occupied nearly every minute of the day, and they soon swept Avelyn into the whirl of the war activities. If it was not exactly her ideal life, she nevertheless liked it, and felt that she was being of use. She went with Cousin Lilia to the Town Hall, and rather enjoyed standing behind a counter handing out pies, or ladling soup into jugs for the rows of busy people who kept pushing in from the long queue standing in the courtyard outside. She admired the smart quick drill in Mary's gymnasium class, and marvelled that the girls had so much spirit left after their long day's work; she made the whole of a Serbian child's dress herself, with beautiful barbaric red-and-blue trimming on it; she helped to hand cigarettes round to the soldiers at their concert; and she played "Blind Man's Buff" and "Drop the Handkerchief" with the slum children at the New Year's party in the Ragged School.