In the day-time I used to wander round the garden.  One always meets someone whom one knows.  I had lunch with the Tylers one day, and tea with the Plymouths.  It was still, bright autumn weather, and the trees were gold in the ugly garden with the black river running through it.  I got a few lessons in motor driving, and I spoke at the hospital one afternoon.  I took the opportunity of getting a dress made at rather a good tailor’s, and time passed in a manner quite solitary till the evenings.

Never before have I spent a year of so much solitude, and yet I have been with people during my work.  I think I know now what thousands of men and women living alone and working are feeling.  I wish I could help them.  There won’t be many young marriages now.  What are we to do for girls all alone?

* * * * *

To Mrs. Keays-Young.

CARDIFF CASTLE, CARDIFF,
31 August, 1915.

DEAREST BABY,

Many thanks for your letter, which I got on my way through London.  I spent one night there to see about some work I am having done in the house.

I have a drawer quite full of press-cuttings, and I do not know what is in any of them.  It is difficult to choose anything of interest, as they are all a good deal alike, and all sound my trumpet very loudly; but I enclose one specimen.

We had meetings every night in Glasgow.  They were mostly badly organised and well attended.  Here I have an agent arranging everything, and two of my meetings have been enormous.  The first was at the dock-gates in the open air, and the second in the Town Hall.  The band of the Welch Regiment played, and Mr. Glover conducted, but nothing is the same, of course.  Alan is at Porthcawl, and came to see me this morning.

The war news could hardly be worse, and yet I am told by men who get sealed information from the Foreign Office that worse is coming.

Poor Russia!  She wants help more than anyone.  Her wounded are quite untended.  I go there next month.

The King of the Belgians has made me Chevalier de l’Ordre de Leopold.

Love to all. 
Yours ever,
S.

* * * * *

Press-cutting enclosed in Miss Macnaughtan’s letter: 

     “STORIES OF THE WAR.”

     CARDIFF LECTURE BY MISS MACNAUGHTAN.

     AUTHORESS’S APPEAL.

     TESTING-TIME OF NATIONAL CHARACTER.

[Page Heading:  A CROWDED MEETING]

A large and enthusiastic audience assembled at the Park-hall, Cardiff, on Monday evening, to hear and see Miss Macnaughtan’s “Stories and Pictures of the War.”  Miss Macnaughtan is a well-known authoress, whose works have attained a world-wide reputation, and, in addition to her travels in almost every corner of the globe, she has had actual experience of warfare at the bombardment of Rio, in the Balkans, the South African War,