stamp the stick and sing RUM--TUM--TUM-- To the Dead March in _Saul_ (that's the name of the tune, and you play it on a drum). [Illustration] Mary is so good, she might easily be a Chaplain, but of course she can't be anything that wants man; She likes nursing her doll, but when we have battles she moves the lead soldiers about, and does what she can. She never grumbles about not being able to grow up into a General, though I should think it must be a great bore. I asked her what she would do if she were grown up into a woman, and belonged to some one who was wounded in the war,-- She said she'd go out and nurse him: so I said, "But supposing you couldn't get him better, and he died; how would you behave?" And she said if she couldn't get a ship to bring him home in, she should stay out there and grow a garden, and make wreaths for his grave. Nurse says we oughtn't to have battles, now Father's gone to battle, but that's just the reason why! And I don't believe one bit what she said about its making Mother cry. Only she does like us to put away our toys on Sunday, so we can't have the soldiers or the gun; But yesterday Dick said, "I was thinking in church, and I've thought of a game about soldiers, and it's a perfectly Sunday one; It's a Church Parade: you'll have to be a lot of officers and men, Mary'll do for a few wives and families, and I'll be Chaplain to the Forces and pray for everyone at the war." So he put his nightgown over his knickerbocker suit, and knelt on the Ashantee stool, and Mary and I knelt on the floor. I think it was rather nice of Dick, for he said what put it into his head Was thinking they mightn't have much time for their prayers on active service, and we ought to say them instead. I should have liked to parade the lead soldiers, but I didn't, for Mother says, "What's the good of being a soldier's son if you can't do as you're bid?" But we thought there'd be no harm in letting the box be there if we kept on the lid. Dick couldn't pray out of the Prayer-book, because he's backward with being delicate, and he can't read; So he had to make a prayer out of his own head, and I think he did it very well indeed. He began, "GOD save the Queen, and the Army and the Navy, and the Irregular Forces and the Volunteers! Especially Old Father (he went out with the first draft, and he's a Captain in the Royal Engineers"). But I said, "I don't think 'GOD save the Queen' is a proper prayer, I think it's only a sort of three cheers." So he said, "GOD bless the Generals, and the Colonels, and the Majors,