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 December 11th, 1917

“Wonderful news came today. The British troops captured Jerusalem yesterday. We ran up the flag and some of Gertrude’s old sparkle came back to her for a moment. “‘After all,’ she said, ‘it is worth while to live in the days which see the object of the Crusades attained. The ghosts of all the old Crusaders must have crowded the walls of Jerusalem last night, with Coeur-de-lion at their head.’

“Susan had cause for satisfaction also.

“‘I am so thankful I can pronounce Jerusalem and Hebron,’ she said. ‘They give me a real comfortable feeling after Przemysl and Brest-Litovsk! Well, we have got the Turks on the run, at least, and Venice is safe and Lord Lansdowne is not to be taken seriously; and I see no reason why we should be downhearted.’

“Jerusalem! The ‘meteor flag of England’ floats over you—the Crescent is gone. How Walter would have thrilled over that!”

December 18th, 1917

“Yesterday the election came off. In the evening mother and Susan and Gertrude and I foregathered in the living room and waited in breathless suspense, father having gone down to the village. We had no way of hearing the news, for Carter Flagg’s store is not on our line, and when we tried to get it Central always answered that the line ‘was busy’—as no doubt it was, for everybody for miles around was trying to get Carter’s store for the same reason we were.

“About ten o’clock Gertrude went to the ‘phone and happened to catch someone from over-harbour talking