"What has that to do with conscription?" asked her brother-in-law gruffly. "I tell you it is coming and no one will be gladder than I am."
"I think it is nothing short of unkind the way that you have been speaking of the Germans. I know I never got muffins like the muffins I got in Berlin that time; and, anyway, there are plenty of the commoner people to go to fight, and they have such large families that they will not miss one as I would miss my Bertie, and he has just recently become engaged to such a dear girl! In our home we simply try to forget this stupid war, but when I come here I hear nothing else--I wonder how you stand it, dear Clara."
Aunt Louisa here dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief in a way that her brother-in-law particularly detested.
"You will hear more about the war some of these days," he said, "when a German Zeppelin drops bombs on London."
Aunt Louisa came as near snorting as a well-bred lady could come, so great was her disdain at this suggestion.
"Zeppelin!" she said scornfully--"on England!! You forget, sir, that we are living in a civilized age! Zeppelin! Indeed, and who would let them, I wonder! I am surprised at you, sir, and so is mother, although she has not spoken."
"You will probably be more surprised before long; life is full of surprises these days."
Just then the butler brought him a wire, the contents of which seemed to bear out this theory, for it told him that Private Stanley Goodman, of the First Canadian Battalion, for conspicuous bravery under fire had been recommended for the D.C.M., but regretted to inform him that Private Goodman had been seriously wounded and was now in the Third Canadian Hospital, Flanders.
The nursing sister, accustomed to strange sights, wondered why this wounded man was so cold, and then she noticed that he had not on his overcoat, and she asked him why he was not wearing it on such a bitter cold night as this. In spite of all his efforts his teeth chattered as he tried to answer her.
"I had to leave a dead friend of mine on the field to-night," said Stanley, speaking with difficulty. "And I could not leave him there with the rain falling on him, could I, sister? It seemed hard to have to leave him, anyway, but we got all the wounded in."