The reinforcements of women are, therefore, behind the ‘common soldier.’ We gentle-nurtured, timid sex did not want the war. It is no pleasure to us to have our homes made desolate and the apple of our eye taken away. We would sooner our lovable, promising, rollicking boy stayed at school. We would have much preferred to have gone on in a light-hearted way with our amusements and our hobbies. But the bugle call came, and we have hung up the tennis racquet, we’ve fetched our laddie from school, we’ve put his cap away, and we have glanced lovingly over his last report which said ‘Excellent’—we’ve wrapped them all in a Union Jack and locked them up, to be taken out only after the war to be looked at. A ‘common soldier,’ perhaps, did not count on the women, but they have their part to play, and we have risen to our responsibility. We are proud of our men, and they in turn have to be proud of us. If the men fail, Tommy Atkins, the women won’t. Tommy Atkins to the front, He has gone to bear the brunt. Shall ‘stay-at-homes’ do naught but snivel and but sigh? No, while your eyes are filling We are up and doing, willing To face the music with you—or to die! Women are created for the purpose of giving life, and men to take it. Now we are giving it in a double sense. It’s not likely we are going to fail Tommy. We shall not flinch one iota, but when the war is over he must not grudge us, when we hear the bugle call of ‘Lights out,’ a brief, very brief, space of time to withdraw into our own secret chambers and share with Rachel the Silent the lonely anguish of a bereft heart, and to look once more on the college cap, before we emerge stronger women to carry on the glorious work our men’s memories have handed down to us for now and all eternity. Yours, etc., A Little Mother. * * * * * EXTRACTS AND PRESS CRITICISMS ‘The widest possible circulation is of the utmost importance.’—_The Morning Post_. ‘Deservedly attracting a great deal of attention, as expressing with rare eloquence and force the feelings with which the British wives and mothers have faced and are facing the supreme sacrifice.’—_The Morning Post_. ‘Excites widespread interest.’—_The Gentlewoman_. ‘A letter which has become celebrated.’—_The Star_. ‘We would like to see it hung up in our wards.’—_Hospital Blue_. ‘One of the grandest things ever written, for it combines a height of courage with a depth of tenderness which should be, and is, the stamp of all that is noblest and best in human nature.’—_A Soldier in France_.