MARY was very much startled. She had been wondering whether she ought to have ordered some more of that New Zealand lamb. There was the week-end to think of. Not that any of them liked it so much as the other. And we really must economise over sugar, Mary decided. Nice-minded people had kept up their war-time habits, had ceased to want now what they couldn’t get then. But the War hadn’t cured Maurice of liking his three lumps a cup. As for saving, generally, it wasn’t in her. She was snobbish about it. The idea of doing things stingily simply revolted her. Cooking in margarine, for instance, which most of their neighbours, who were much better off than they were, did as a matter of course. If you hadn’t got the stuff—that was a different matter.

She returned to the service with a violent jerk.

“What’s the matter?” she whispered to Lily. “Are you all right?”

Lily must have felt faint for a moment, but she didn’t show it now. In fact, she glanced up quite coldly at Mary and said: “Perfectly, thank you.”

Mary couldn’t help smiling. That was so exactly like Lily, to squeeze your hand one minute and snub you the next. But she really is extraordinary, Mary thought. I shall never be able to understand what she’s driving at.

How strange it is, Mary reflected, to think of the days when I really hated her—almost as much as I hated Mother. The truth was, I merely wanted a scapegoat, and she was a stranger. It was easier to blame her than Dick. I suppose I was very unfair on her; not that it did her much harm. It wouldn’t have kept her awake at nights.

The Bishop turned to address them from the steps of the Cross. He said:

“To-day we are gathered together at the foot of this Cross by a common sorrow and with a common purpose.”

But no, Mary couldn’t believe that she’d ever hated Lily. It was impossible. She still looked so idiotically young. There was scarcely a line in her face, although she couldn’t be under thirty-seven. And yet she was frightfully cut up when Dick was killed. That was genuine enough. But it isn’t crying that makes you look your age, thought Mary. It’s having to buy the dinner every day of the year for eighteen years, wondering what everybody likes and usually guessing wrong, and then to bring it all home and cook it. Probably Lily had never cooked a meal in her life.

“There are some of us here to-day,” said the Bishop, “who have looked on that scene of terrible desolation, who have seen, as I myself have seen, those shattered villages and streets, those blasted fields and those blackened trees. But to the others, those who have not seen that land, I should like to put this question: What did the War mean to you?”