I have been into the poor old Camp.  I will tell thee.  Did you ever meet Mr. F., R.E.? a young engineer of H.’s standing, and his chief friend.  A Lav-engro (Russian is his present study) with a nice taste in old brass pots and Eastern rugs, and a choice little book-case, and a terrier named “Jem “—­the exact image of dear old “Rough.”  He asked us to go to tea to see the pictures you and I gave to the Mess and so forth.  So the General let us have the carriage and pair and away we went.  It is the divinest air!  It was like passing quickly through BALM of body and mind.  And you know how the birds sing, and how the young trees look among the pines, and the milkmaids in the meadows, and the kingcups in the ditches, and then the North Camp and the dust, and Sir Evelyn Wood’s old quarters with a new gate, and then the racecourse with polo going on and more dust!—­and then the R.E. theatre (where nobody has now the spirit to get up any theatricals!), and the “Kennel” (as Jane Turton called it) where I used to get flags and rushes, and where Trouve, dear Trouve! will never swim again!  And then the Iron Church from which I used to run backwards and forwards not to be late for dinner every evening, with the “tin” roof that used to shake to the “Tug of War Hymn,”—­and then more dust, and (it must be confessed) dirt and squalor, and back views of ashpit and mess-kitchens and wash-houses, and turf wall the grass won’t grow on, and rustic work always breaking up! and so on into the R.E.  Lines!  Mr. F. was not quite ready for us, so we drove on a little and looked at No. 3.  N. Lines.  T.’s hut is nearly buried in creepers now.  An Isle of Man(do you remember?) official lives there, they say; but it looked as if only the Sleeping Beauty could.  Our hut looks just the same.  Cole’s greenhouse in good repair.  But through all the glamour of love one could see that there is a good deal of dirt and dust, and refuse and coal-boxes!!!

Then a bugle played!—­

     “The trumpet blew!”

I think it was “Oh come to the Orderly Room!” We went to the Mess.  The Dining-Room is much improved by a big window, high pitched, opposite the conservatory.  It is new papered, prettily, and our pictures hang on each side of the fireplace.  Mr. G. joined us and we went into the Ante-Room.  Then to the inevitable photo books, in the window where poor old Y. used to sit in his spotless mufti.  When G. (who is not spirituel) said, turning over leaves for the young ladies, “that and that are killed” I turned so sick!  Mac G. and Mac D.!  Oh dear!  There be many ghosts in “old familiar places.”  But I have no devouter superstition than that the souls of women who die in childbed and men who fall in battle go straight to Paradise!!!  Requiescant in Pace.

Then to tea in Mr. F.’s quarters next to the men.  Then—­now mark you, how the fates managed so happy a coincidence—­G. said casually, “I saw Mrs. Jelf in the Lines just now!” I nearly jumped out of my boots, for I did not know she had got to England.  Then F. had helped to nurse Jelf in Cyprus and was of course interested to see her, so out went G. for Mrs. J., and anon, through the hut porch in she came—­Tableau—!