“He writes poems about Roseborough?”
“Oh, no, no! It is the professor’s. You see I copied the little gem about our dear old town and enclosed it when I first wrote him about publishing. I wanted it to awaken the home desire in him. He has never married—it is too bad. Wait ... oh, here it is. He says:
“I remember that names and dates never stayed in your head, Mother Lee, even simple Anglo-Saxon names. So I won’t burden you with the extensive and excruciating hereditary title of the royal personage who just now employs me at a handsome salary in laying out a recreation garden for his peasants. You would weary and faint before you reached the end of it! Suffice it for your pride to know that I have given to this royal personage the little article about Roseborough. It came about, naturally, one day in the garden that I read it to him. He was charmed with it, touched. So I, of course, let him keep it. He has translated it into his own jawcracking language [‘Jawcracking’ is in brackets—the naughty boy!], and has made an illuminated copy which hangs in his music room where he spends most of his time.
“There, my dear! Is not that something to be proud of? To think that my dear husband is even helping unpronounceable personages in those dreadful Balkans!”
Rosamond’s own cheeks were rosy from sympathetic thrill and she joined warmly in the elder woman’s delight.
“Oh, Mrs. Lee, how lovely! I should think you would be so proud that you would refuse to speak to poor commoners like us! You have known that for weeks and never told it! I should have gone up and down Roseborough with a trumpet.”
“Oh, you must not tell it even now! I wish to keep it until the right moment, when I can give it out in such a way that all Roseborough will feel that the honour does not exalt me, in a personal way, but is theirs as much as mine.”
Rosamond cocked her head, impudently.
“Afraid Mrs. Witherby will scratch?”
“No, you naughty girl! But Roseborough, having the communal spirit so strongly, does not take kindly to personal exaltations. I have learned to respect this sensitiveness.”