He inquired if my husband had felt any qualms _when he took upon his shoulders this great decision_. I answered that our Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward now Lord Grey, Lord Crewe, and others, had made up their minds from the first moment; and that in one year--thanks to the Committee of Defence, Lord Haldane and Lord Kitchener--we had produced a large voluntary army; and had he been in England at the time, he would have been struck by the pathos and silence with which men of every class joined up to fight in a war which was not their own, against a foe for whom they felt no hatred. He asked if England had been disappointed that America had come in so late to help her, I confessed that in a moment of pique I had exclaimed that had I been Christopher Columbus I would have said nothing about the discovery, but that I doubted if Great Britain would have come in any earlier to help the United States had they been in a similar quandary. Someone asked me privately if I had lost a child in the war. I said that my little boy had been too young to fight, but that both my sisters, my three brothers and my husband had lost their sons; that living in Downing Street in the first years of the war had been an anguish, the depth of which no one could realise. We had refused to drop any of our German friends in London, and in consequence became targets for the abuse and calumny of our social and political enemies. It is a subject that rouses me to undying indignation when I remember the manner in which we were persecuted, not only by our opponents, but by some of my personal friends even after we had been defeated in the General Election of 1918. One of the candidates said that she had often been to Downing Street on matters of vital importance during the war and had been struck by the lack of feeling shown by myself and my husband. Mr. Heath Moore gave me an account of the savage manner with which the German population over here had been treated when America joined the Allies. He told me among other things, that one of his fellow-countrymen in a great recruiting speech had been interrupted by a man in the gallery who was understood to have shouted: "Hurrah for the Kaiser!" At which he was kicked and beaten down the stairs to the street and, but for the intervention of a policeman, would have been killed. When asked what he had done, the unfortunate German said his only son had been killed in the war and that he had shouted: "To hell with the Kaiser!" This was mild compared to some of the cruelties related. It is always dangerous to generalise, but the American people, while infinitely generous, are a hard and strong race and, but for the few cemeteries I have seen, I am inclined to think they never die. They thrive in rooms as hot as conservatories, can sit up all night, eat candy and ice-cream all day, and live to a great age upon either social or commercial excitement without leisure.