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[Page 8]
-7-
beside so that I might drive and the guests at my hotel came on the balcony to see us start, I felt the proudest Mother that ever was.
In Hyde Park, that pleasant Autumn morning, I realised what havoc war was making with the manhood of England. There were processions of Bath-chairs wheeled by Orderlies and Nurses, and in them limbless men who would never again know the joy of walking or riding in that beautiful Park, where some of them from boyhood had foregathered. It gave me a lump in my throat, and, looking back after this lapse of time, it is saddening that custom had made such sights so familiar that today they are hardly noticed. We all had dinner together and that afternoon I saw them off to their camps, and I turned homewards alone but not lonely. The very streets seemed friendly, and I wondered how I could have thought London would be awesome. It seemed to me that in some past age I must have lived here and come back to my own.
I set about establishing myself in my new quarters and the friendly atmosphere that pervaded the house helped me to forget that I was 1200 miles from Home.
Looking back over my rough diary, I see that the very next afternoon I became a true Londoner by being caught in a Fog, coming home from tea with an Australian Friend who had immediately looked me up. She, with many directions, saw me into the Piccadilly Tube and I got to South Kensington to find that the Fog, black enough when I left her at five o'clock, had got to the consistency of "Pitch", but I was unafraid. It was London, and my heart was light. Cautiously I groped my way along - taking what I thought must be the right turn - guided only by the occasional flash light by the passers-by, who looked like shrouded ghosts. Like a blindman I felt the walls, tapped the pavement with my umbrella, and reached a house that looked familiar. I tried to fit my key, but the fumbling attracted attention on the inside and the door was opened by some one I had not seen before. Is this not 130