But there is a little stream of Pilgrims sometimes to be met with going the other way. They are returning, like the Prodigal, but there is no one to welcome them. Some are very tragic figures, and for them the sun is for ever obscured. But there are others--quite plain, sober men and women, some humorists, and some sages. They have honestly sought the Country, and they, too, have unfurled banners and marched on; but they have met with many things on the road which do not match the watchwords, and they have heard many wonderful things which, truthfully considered, do not always appear to them to be facts. They have called Poverty beautiful, and they have found it very ugly; and they have called Money naught, and they have found it to be Power. They have found Sacrifice accepted, and then claimed by the selfish and mean, and even Love has not been all that was expected. The Pilgrims return. Their poor tummies, too, are empty, but no calf is killed for them, there is no feasting and no joy. They stay at home, but neither Elder Son nor Prodigal has any use for them. In the end they turn out the light and go to sleep, regretting--if they have any humour--their many virtues, which for so long prevented them enjoying the pleasant things of life. * * * * * _March._--I lie in bed all day up here amongst these horrible snows. The engineer comes in sometimes and makes me a cup of Benger's Food. For the rest, I lean up on my elbow when I can, and cook some little thing--Bovril or hot milk--on my Etna stove. Then I am too tired to eat it, and the sickness begins all over again. Oh, if I could leave this place! If only someone would send back my car, which has been taken away, or if I could hear where Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan are! But no, the door of this odious place is locked, and the key is thrown away. I have lost count of time. I just wait from day to day, hoping someone will come and take me away, though I am now getting so weak I don't suppose I can travel. One wonders whether there can be a Providence in all this disappointment. I think not. I just made a great mistake coming out here, and I have suffered for it. Ye gods, what a winter it has been--disillusioning, dull, hideously and achingly disappointing! [Page Heading: MEMORIES OF HOME] It is too odd to think that until the war came I was the happiest woman in the world. It is too funny to think of my house in London, which people say is the only "salon"--a small "salon," indeed! But I can hardly believe now in my crowds of friends, my devoted servants, my pleasant work, the daily budget of letters and invitations, and the press notices in their pink slips. Then the big lectures and the applause--the shouts when I come in. The joy, almost the intoxication of life, has been mine.