There was Bert, not doin' a stroke of work for
the Professor, and yet his pay going on all the same. Indeed she was
putting money by, because Bert was kep' out there, and all found."
However his two pretty children were some consolation to Mrs.
Rossiter, whom they considered as a very grand lady and one that was
lavishly kind.
Mrs. Rossiter tried sometimes in 1915 having working parties in her
house or in the studio; and if she could attract workers gave them
such elaborate lunches and plethoric teas that very little work was
done, especially as she herself loved a long, aimless gossip about
the Royal Family or whether Lord Kitchener had ever _really_ been in
love. Or she tried, since she was a poor worker herself--her only
jersey and muffler were really finished by her maid--reading aloud
to the knitters or stitchers, preferably from the works of Miss
Charlotte Yonge or some similar novelist of a later date. But that
was found to be too disturbing to their sense of the ludicrous. For
she read very stiltedly, with a strange exotic accent for the love
passages or the death scenes. As Lady Victoria Freebooter said, she
would have been _priceless_ at a music-hall matinee which was
raising funds for war charities, if only she could have been induced
to read passages from Miss Yonge in _that_ voice for a quarter of an
hour. Even the Queen would have had to laugh.
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