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CHAPTER IV

THE NIGHT OF WAR

Christmas is approaching while I am writing about woman's work in the munition factories, the third Christmas of the war. And in order that I may make (in response to many requests) a general survey of female war-work outside the London area, and give, at the same time, a broad if necessarily hasty sketch of the war-activities of the kingdom at this most critical time, I will ask the reader to follow me in memory and imagination while I attempt to describe three Christmas Eves—that which immediately preceded the war, that which is now so near at hand, and that which will soon come, please God, with

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