Dodo Wonders by E.F. Benson

The morning papers were late that day, and when they arrived Dodo snatched at them and automatically turned to the _communique_ from the French front. There was a list of names of villages which had been lost to the allies, but these were unfamiliar and meant nothing to her. Then she looked with a sudden sinking of the heart at the accompanying map which shewed by a black line the new position of the front, and that was intelligible enough. For the last fortnight it had been moving westwards and southwards with regular and incredible rapidity like the advance of some incoming tide over level sands. Occasionally for a little it had been held up, but the flood, frankly irresistible, always swept away that which had caused the momentary check. In the next column was an account of German atrocities compiled from the stories of Belgian refugees.

Dodo had come back to London last night from Winston where she had been seeing to the conversion of the house into a Red Cross hospital, and just now she felt, like some intolerable ache, the sense of her own uselessness. All her life she had found it perfectly easy to do the things which she wanted to do, and she had supposed herself to be an efficient person. But now, when there was need for efficient people, what did her qualifications amount to? She could ride, as few women in England could ride, she was possessed of enormous physical and nervous energy, she was an inimitable hostess, could convert a dull party into a brilliant one by the sheer effortless out-pouring of her own wit and infectious vivacity, but for all practical purposes from organisation down to knitting, she was as useless as a girl straight out of the nursery where everything had been done for her by assiduous attendants.