Page:Our Girls.pdf/107

 "Lil allus seemed to know 'e was alive and well, and when 'e came in sudden like it was a bit of orl right, I tell ye. And if ye'd seen 'er going down the street to the photographer's, 'oldin' on to Will's arm, and 'im carryin' the byby, she wasn't lookin' 'alf glad, was she?"

Tommy's sister is "a proper kiddy," as Tommy himself would say, but it would not be right to put too much on her. We have to remember her sex and its perils, and her youth and its dangers. That is why the Ministry of Munitions have established a Welfare Department, whereof the object is to humanize the work of the women while they are in the factories, and to guard and guide their lives outside. Great numbers of girls come up from the country to work in the vast Arsenal at Woolwich, and hostels for their accommodation have been opened in various parts of London. It must be admitted that Tommy's sister is not always "partial" to hostels, preferring the homeliest room that is her own in a labourer's