To fall fighting for England in the full tide of life, to fall, shot through the heart, without a pang and in a moment of supreme exaltation is to finish gloriously, enviably. We all know this and we all say it, though some of us perhaps may feel that our own hearts are none the less broken for that. However, it was not to be expected that Mildred Haseldine should be broken-hearted when the news came to Culme House. She was much distressed; still she could not but recognise that there were compensating circumstances, and she went over at once to Bratton Farm to impart some of these to the poor lad’s parents. If her condolences were not received in quite as grateful a spirit as they might have been, she could and did make allowances for the grief-stricken farmer and his wife. Old Issel scarcely listened to what she was saying, and cut her short by calling out in a loud, harsh voice: ‘What did ’a want to go and get hisself killed vur? Darn they foul Germans! Yes, Miss, I don’t doubt but you’m sorry, but it bain’t your sorrow as’ll bring my boy back.’ With that he stumped out of the kitchen, leaving Mildred to do what she could with Mrs. Issel, which was an even more difficult matter. For Mrs. Issel, dry-eyed and despairing, had some rather unkind and irrational things to say. When, for instance, she was gently told that her visitor had strong personal reasons for sympathising with all to whom the war was bringing anxiety or loss, it was not very generous to rejoin that the young lady need not fret. ‘They staff officers don’t niver take no hurt, so I’ve heerd tell.’ But what was really too unjust to be endured without protest was the assertion that it was Miss Mildred more than anybody who had driven Jan away to distant battlefields by ‘putting a passel of foolish notions into his head.’ In self-defence, Mildred had to remind the old woman that, so far from having encouraged Jan to enlist, she had tried, by providing him with other interests, to deter him from so doing. As for his actual enlistment, she had only heard of it after it had become an accomplished fact. This being undeniably true, Mrs. Issel made no reply and remained silent while it was represented to her that we can never be sure whether an early death is a misfortune or not. No living being can hope to escape sorrow and suffering, and Mildred, for her part, did not think that poor Jan’s temperament was of the kind that tends towards happiness.