He put his arm round his wife, and lifted her head to his shoulder, while Zacky ran off with piercing howls. These were fortunately louder than those of the poor duck whose neck Ivy was wringing outside the stable. She rushed in, all bloody from her victim, and in a few moments had laid her mother on the floor, unfastened her dingy remains of stays, and dabbled her forehead with water, while Mus’ Beatup, relieved of his stewardship, stumped about, groaning, and drank the whisky himself. In the midst of it all the big-mouthed little girl, forgotten in the drive, started beating on the door and demanding “if there was an answer, please.” Zacky was sent to dismiss her and vented his grief on the messenger of woe by putting out his tongue at her till she was out of sight—a salute which she returned with all the increased opportunities that nature had given her. Mrs. Beatup soon recovered. “I caum over all swummy like ... this is the first time I’ve swounded since Zacky wur born ... I reckon this is sharper than childbirth.” The tears came at last, and she sobbed against Ivy’s bosom. “Doan’t go vrothering, mother. I tell you it’s naun tar’ble. They said ‘seriously’ when poor Sid Viner wur wounded to death, and Ted Podgam in Gallipoli. Maybe they’ll send him hoame soon.” “I want to go to him.... He’s got a hole in him.... Why do they kip his mother from him when he’s sick? When he had measles he never let go my hand one whole day, and he said, ‘Stay wud me, mother—I feel tedious bad.’ Maybe he’s saying it now.” “And maybe he aun’t. Maybe he’s setting up in bed eating chicken and drinking wine, wud no more’n a piece off his big toe.” She took out a dirty handkerchief and wiped her mother’s eyes. Then she said: “I maun go and tell Thyrza Honey.” 6 But the fates had decided to honour Tom’s mother above his sweetheart in that it was she alone who bore the full grief of his wounding. On her way to the shop, Ivy met Thyrza engaged in something as near a run as her plump person was capable of, and waving in her hand a letter. It was a pencil-scrawl written in hospital at Boulogne, telling Thyrza not to vrother, because he was doing valiant. He had got a Blighty one and hoped to be sent home soon. It was nothing serious, only a bit of shrap in his foot. “Didn’t I tell mother as it was no more’n a piece off his big toe?” cried Ivy triumphantly. The letter had been Thyrza’s first news of Tom’s wound, and all the anxiety and yearning she felt were swallowed up in the joy of his coming home. A few days later she had a telegram from him, telling of his arrival in hospital at Eastbourne, and by this time Mrs. Beatup had recovered sufficiently to resent the fact that it had been sent to Thyrza and not to her.