The days that followed were days of anxious questioning.  The men brought back stories of the great crowds that surged through the streets blocking the traffic in front of the newspaper offices reading the bulletins, while the bands played patriotic airs; of the misguided German who shouted, “Hoch der Kaiser!” and narrowly escaped the fury of the crowd.

We held a monster meeting one night at “Windwhistle Cottage,” and we all made speeches, although none of us knew what to say.  The general tone of the speeches was to hold steady,—­not to be panicky,—­Britannia rules the waves,—­it would all be over soon,—­Dr. Robertson Nicholl and Kitchener could settle anything!

The crowd around the dancing pavilion began to dwindle in the evenings—­that is, of the older people.  The children still danced, happily; fluffy-haired little girls, with “headache” bands around their pretty heads, did the fox-trot and the one-step with boys of their own age and older, but the older people talked together in excited groups.

Every night when the train came in the crowds waited in tense anxiety to get the papers, and when they were handed out, read them in silence, a silence which was ominous.  Political news was relegated to the third page and was not read until we got back to the veranda.  In these days nothing mattered; the baker came late; the breakfast dishes were not washed sometimes until they were needed for lunch, for the German maids and the English maids discussed the situation out under the trees.  Mary, whose last name sounded like a tray of dishes falling, the fine-looking Polish woman who brought us vegetables every morning, arrived late and in tears, for she said, “This would be bad times for Poland—­always it was bad times for Poland, and I will never see my mother again.”

A shadow had fallen on us, a shadow that darkened the children’s play.  Now they made forts of sand, and bored holes in the ends of stove-wood to represent gaping cannon’s mouths, and played that half the company were Germans; but before many days that game languished, for there were none who would take the German part:  every boat that was built now was a battleship, and every kite was an aeroplane and loaded with bombs!

In less than a week we were collecting for a hospital ship to be the gift of Canadian women.  The message was read out in church one afternoon, and volunteer collectors were asked for.  So successful were these collectors all over Canada that in a few days word came to us that enough money had been raised, and that all moneys collected then could be given to the Belgian Relief Fund.  The money had simply poured in—­it was a relief to give!

Before the time came for school to begin, there were many closed cottages, for the happy careless freedom of the beach was gone; there is no happiness in floating across a placid lake in a flat-bottomed boat if you find yourself continually turning your head toward the shore, thinking that you hear some one shouting, “Extra.”