As they rose for that purpose, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn rose also. She must really be going; it was the cook's evening out. Gwenneth and Gwladys were bidden to say good-by to Grandpa. They did so shyly but rather prettily. "Now let me see you shake hands with your Auntie Melia," said Josiah. Gwenneth and Gwladys accomplished this task less successfully. They were half terrified by this shabby, gloomy, silent woman who had not a word to say. XXVIII Weeks went by and Melia settled down to a hard and lonely winter in Love Lane. She missed Bill sadly now he was no longer there. Absence had conferred all sorts of virtues upon him. She quite forgot that for many years and up till very recently she could hardly bear the sight of him about the place. Their relations as man and wife had entered upon a new and very remarkable phase. About once a fortnight or so life was made a bit lighter for her by a penciled scrawl from somewhere in France. Bill's letters told surprisingly little, yet he maintained a kind of grim cheeriness and seemed more concerned for the life she might be leading than for anything that was happening to himself. He was very grateful for the small comforts she sent him from time to time, he was much interested in the continued prosperity of the business, and he mentioned with evident pleasure that her mother had sent him a pair of socks and a comforter she had knitted herself, also a "nice letter." From his mother-in-law, whom Bill had always suspected of being a good sort at heart, "if the Old Un would give her a chance," he had an account of Melia's visit to Strathfieldsaye. Her mother said what pleasure it would give her father if she would go there every Sunday. The statement was incredible on the face of it; Bill frankly didn't know what to think, but there it was. No doubt the old girl meant kindly. Perhaps it was her idea of bucking him up. In his letters to Melia he made no comment on the life he was leading, but in one he told her that they had moved up into the Line; in another that "the Boche had got it in the neck"; in another that "he had got the rheumatics so that he could hardly move," but that he meant to carry on as long as possible, adding, "We are very short of men." Somehow the letters of that dark winter made her more proud than ever of this man of hers. There was a determined note of quiet cheerfulness that she had never known in him before. Instead of the eternal grumbling that had done so much to embitter her, there was a tone of whimsical humor which at a time made her laugh, although as a general rule few people found it harder than she did to laugh at anything. She had little imagination, still less of the penetration of mind that goes with it, but there was one phrase he used that was hard to forget. In one letter he was tempted to complain that the Boche had taken to raiding them in the middle of the night, but he added a postscript, "It's no use growsing here."