Princess Mary's Gift Book: All profits on sale given to the Queen's "Work for Women" Fund

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by J. M. Barrie, G. A. Birmingham and Others

Princess Mary's Gift Book: All profits on sale given to the Queen's "Work for Women" Fund which is acting in Conjunction with The National Relief Fund

Spartan Hearts, by Beatrice Harraden, was first published in a volume entitled "Untold Tales of the Past"; Big Steamers, by Rudyard Kipling, in "A History of England," by C. R. L. Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling; Bimbashi Joyce, by Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Green Flag, and other Stories"; and we have to thank Messrs. William Blackwood & Sons, The Oxford University Press, and Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for permission to include these contributions in Princess Mary's Gift Book.

With these exceptions the poems and stories in this book have not previously been issued in volume form. The illustrations have all been specially painted and drawn, and an exhibition of the work of the artists who have thus contributed to Princess Mary's Gift Book will be held at the Leicester Galleries, Leicester Square, W.C., and the originals sold in aid of the Queen's "Work for Women" Fund.

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A Holiday in Bed

by J. M. Barrie

People have tried a holiday in bed before now, and found it a failure, but that was because they were ignorant of the rules. They went to bed with the open intention of staying there, say, three days, and found to their surprise that each morning they wanted to get up. This was a novel experience to them; they flung about restlessly, and probably shortened their holiday. The proper thing is to take your holiday in bed with a vague intention of getting up in another quarter of an hour. The real pleasure of lying in bed after you are awake is largely due to the feeling that you ought to get up. To take another quarter of an hour then becomes a luxury. You are, in short, in the position of the man who dined on larks. Had he seen the hundreds that were ready for him, all set out on one monster dish, they would have alarmed him; but getting them two at a time, he went on eating till all the larks were gone. His feeling of uncertainty as to whether these might not be his last two larks is your feeling that, perhaps, you will have to get up in a quarter of an hour. Deceive yourself in this way, and your holiday in bed will pass only too quickly.

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