Lady Aileen Roberts was with us during our tour of the hospital.

As a daily visitor and patroness she spent much of her time here and she knew most of the inmates by name.
She halted alongside one bed to ask its occupant how he felt.

He had been returned from the front suffering from pneumonia.
He was an Irishman.

Before he answered her he cast a quick look about the long hall.

Afternoon tea was just being served, consisting, besides tea, of homemade strawberry jam and lettuce sandwiches made of crisp fresh bread, with plenty of butter; and certain elderly ladies had just arrived, bringing with them, among other contributions, sheaves of flowers and a dogcart loaded with hothouse fruit and a dozen loaves of plumcake, which last were still hot from the oven and which radiated a mouth-watering aroma as a footman bore them in behind his mistress.