Sisters' Quarters
University House
Birmingham
4th September 1915
My own dear One
I feel I want to write frequently although there is little news to give you.
I think I told you in my last letter that Arthur rang me up the other evening. He told me he is arranging to put Mary and "Dorothy Mary" into a furnished flat or house, somewhere near friends or relatives. The Baby is to be christened tomorrow so by the time you get this letter she will be really Dorothy Mary. I like the two names very much.
Your letter says in her letter today that Arthur looks well but rather thin. He told me he had been very anxious about Mary so I expect anxiety has helped to make him thinner.
Outside the envelope your Mother has written that your letter from Lemnos had arrived that morning so now I think we have received all the letters you wrote up to and on the 12th, also one written on the 21st from Malta. I don't know whether they received one dated the 21st at home but I got one with that date on it, written when you reached hospital.
Everyone has been very nice and synpathetic to me ever since we got the wire from the War Office, but I thijnk in nearly every case people do not realize how much the girl suffers shen engaged, they feel more for the parents. I expect this is natural but personally I feel more for the girl (I don't mean myself) because it means that if anything happens to her fiance, life has lost its chief joy. She can still live a useful and to a certain extent happy life, happin in knowing that she and he did their duty, but all the dear hopes for the future have to be set aside, at what great cost only fshe and he alone can understand.
I want to write Mary a few lines tonight, dear, so must end soon.
One of our "massage" Sisters has just announced her angagement to a Captain Blagden, an airman who was invalided here but has been out of hsopital some time now! He wrote to Matron and told her himself. The latter is not best pleased. Isn't that like a woman!!
All my love, Sweetheart, hoping you continue to make good progress, also wishing you could come home on leave!
Ever your devoted
Mela
