To return to “My Home,” I question whether the love and devotion of “Hilda” and “Ma” for Hugh was so entirely unselfish.  For my mother I fully believe, as for “Hilda,” Hugh was the epitome of all that was fine, splendid and joyous in life.  He was the glorious knight, the “preux chevalier” “sans peur et sans reproche,” who rode forth at dawn with clean sword and shining armour, and all the world before him, yet keeping his heart for ever in his home.  He was the child of her youth as Donald was the child of her maturity.  Deep down in her wonderfully varied nature there were certain bottomless springs of courage, daring and enterprise which she herself had little chance of expressing and of which Hugh alone was the personification.

As long as I can remember Hugh had been my ideal and made all the interest and joy of life for me.  Whether he were at home or abroad I never had a thought I did not share with him.  When he died, the best part of me died too, or was paralysed rather, and Heaven knows what sort of a “substitute” I should have been for “Ma” to Donald, had not the baby Hugh come, just in time, with healing in his wings to restore life to the best part of me!

I am glad to think that Donald’s “Autobiography” was written before 1914, for I know that even before that I was becoming more to him than a “substitute.”  I too have my memories and pictures!

It is May, 1915.  I am in the country-house—­cleaning is going on at home.

I get a letter to say that the Rifle Brigade may leave for France at any time, and that Donald may get some “leave” on Saturday or Sunday.

I make a dash for town.

There I find a telegram of reckless and unconscionable length, running into two pages.  He cannot come up—­they may leave at any moment.  It seems hardly worth while my bothering to come to Aldershot on the chance—­he may be unable to leave barracks.

I write a return telegram—­also of reckless and unconscionable length, and reply paid—­it is a relief to do so—­asking for a place of meeting at Aldershot to be suggested.

I get no answer at all, and on Sunday morning, in despair, I go over to see my aunt and cousin.  My aunt is my mother’s sister and a sportswoman.  She counsels, “Go at all costs.”  Dorothy will come with me:  Dorothy is Donald’s best woman pal—­she reminds him of his mother.  She is all that is wholesome and comportable.

The element of enjoyment comes in, and I go home and pack a nice lunch.

We arrive at Aldershot.

There is no one on the platform to meet us, and we push our way through the turnstile.

There is Donald, on the outskirts of the waiting crowd—­a tall, soldierly figure in the uniform of a private—­for he has resigned his sergeant’s stripes by now.

His face is very boyish—­not the face of the photograph at the beginning of this book:  that was taken after he had been to France, and had been wounded, and had written “A Passing in June,” and “The Honour of the Brigade”—­but a much younger face, really boyish.