way, as if he were a little boy they had adopted.  He had—­has, for after all he’s only gone to the Abbey to get over a bad attack of influenza on top of months of hard work—­he has a strangely youthful look, although he’s nearly thirty.  He hails from Lichfield.  I wonder what Dr. Johnson would have made of him.  I’ve already told you about Brother Anselm.  Well, now that I’ve seen him at home, as it were, I can’t discover the secret of his influence with our men.  He’s every bit as taciturn with them as he was with me on that drive from the station, and yet there is not one of them that doesn’t seem to regard him as an intimate friend.  He’s extraordinarily good at the practical side of the business.  He makes the men comfortable.  He always knows just what they’re wanting for tea or for supper, and the games always go well when Brother Anselm presides, much better than they do when I’m in charge!  I think perhaps that’s because I play myself, and want to win.  It infects the others.  And yet we ought to want to win a game—­otherwise it’s not worth playing.  Also, I must admit that there’s usually a row in the billiard room on my nights on duty.  Brother Anselm makes them talk better than I do, and I don’t think he’s a bit interested in their South African experiences.  I am, and they won’t say a word about them to me.  I’ve been here a month now, so they ought to be used to me by this time.

We’ve just heard that the guest-house for soldiers at the Abbey will be finished by the middle of next month, so we’re already discussing our Christmas party.  The Priory, which sounds so grand and gothic, is really the corner house of a most depressing row of suburban villas, called Glenview and that sort of thing.  The last tenant was a traveller in tea and had a stable instead of the usual back-garden.  This we have converted into a billiard room.  An officer in one of the regiments quartered here told us that it was the only thing in Aldershot we had converted.  The authorities aren’t very fond of us.  They say we encourage the men to grumble and give them too great idea of their own importance.  Brother Anselm asked a general once with whom we fell out if it was possible to give a man whose profession it was to defend his country too great an idea of his own importance.  The general merely blew out his cheeks and looked choleric.  He had no suspicion that he had been scored off.  We don’t push too much religion into the men at present.  We’ve taught them to respect the Crucifix on the wall in the dining-room, and sometimes they attend Vespers.  But they’re still rather afraid of chaff, such as being called the Salvation Army by their comrades.  Well, here’s an end to this long letter, for I must write now to Brother Jerome, whose name-day it is to-morrow.  Love to all at the Rectory.

     Your ever affectionate

     Mark.

Mark remained at Aldershot until the week before Christmas, when with a party of Tommies he went back to the Abbey.  He found that Brother Chad’s convalescence had been seriously impeded in its later stages by the prospect of having to remain at the Abbey as guest-master, and though Mark was sorry to leave Aldershot he saw by the way the Tommies greeted their old friend that he was dear to their hearts.  When after Christmas Brother Chad took the party back, Mark made up his mind that the right person was going.