She reminded him of the French peasant women in whose farms he often lodged behind the lines.

She meanwhile was scrutinising him--the badge on his cap, and the two buttons on his khaki sleeve.
'I think I know who you are,' she said, with a sudden smile.

'Aren't you Mr.and Mrs.Sarratt?
Sir William Farrell told me about you.' Then she turned to the boy--'Go on, Jim.

I'll come soon.' A conversation followed on the mountain path, in which their new acquaintance gave her name as Miss Hester Martin, living in a cottage on the outskirts of Ambleside, a cousin and old friend of Sir William Farrell; an old friend indeed, it seemed, of all the local residents; absorbed in war-work of different kinds, and somewhere near sixty years of age; but evidently neither too old nor too busy to have lost the natural interest of a kindly spinster in a bride and bridegroom, especially when the bridegroom was in khaki, and under orders for the front.

She promised, at once, to come and see Mrs.Sarratt, and George, beholding in her a possible motherly friend for Nelly when he should be far away, insisted that she should fix a day for her call before his departure.