“Same old Veesbaden, March 30.
“Darling old Mother, and all of you,
“Grandfather’s better again, but Aunt Helene is pretty ill. She never goes walks now, but lies on the sofa nearly all the time. She likes me to talk to her and tell her about my lessons, especially my music. The doctor said to Grandfather last week she ought to go for a sea-voyage, and said, ‘Take a run to Australia.’ My scrimmy, I couldn’t help turning straight head over heels, and I made an awful row, [264] ]and Grandfather swore like anything. Then the doctor said if we came straight away now she’d escape the rest of the cold weather here, and I nearly turned over again. Oh, my scrimmy, think of seeing you all in a month or two! Grandfather growled like anything, he doesn’t seem to think any one but himself ought to be ill, and he said he was very comfortable where he was, and he wasn’t going to lay himself open to sea-sickness. And so I told him there was a fellow when we came out, and he used to put cotton-wool in his ears and wear smoked glasses, and pretend hard to himself for three days that he was right away up country, and he was never sick at all hardly. And Grandfather gave a roar at me and said, ‘Clear out.’ You never know where to take that chap. I laid for the doctor, he’s a very nice fellow, and I told him I thought Aunt ought to go the voyage at once; she hardly ate anything at dinner, and there was roast quales and things. And I told him I’d look after her like anything if Grandfather liked to stop behind. I went round with him in his buggy to all his places, and he talked and was as nice as anything; he said he’d like to see Phyl and Dolly writing in that room old Clif and Ted built; and I’d got that photo of Weenie up a tree in my pocket that old Ted took, and he said she looked like the little youthful maiden Hiney wrote about. Hiney’s a poet that lives somewhere out here, I think, you often hear people talking about him. Well, the [265] ]old brick said he’d try to persuade Grandfather to come, he said the voyage would do him good too. He’s a real Briton, that man, although he’s made in Germany. I’ll keep letting you know things as fast as I find them out.”
[266]
]CHAPTER XXV
THE TRIALS OF WEENIE
Weenie was fourteen before Romance in any way affected her.
True she had occasionally been bitten with a desire to emulate her sisters, and the results had been so unique that Mrs. Wise had carried them off and placed them in her “put-away” drawer, an honour she rarely bestowed on the prolific elder sisters.
There was the time for instance that Phyl and Dolly had written a play which they had acted among themselves with much success. The doctor was much amused one day while rehearsals were still going on to come across Weenie sitting in the summer-house, biting her pen very hard.
“No, I protest,” he said; “look here, [two authoresses] are enough in the family. For Heaven’s sake don’t you catch the disease.”
“I don’t see why they should be the only ones to write,” Weenie said; “it’s ever so easy; I’m always going to do it.”
[267]
]“Mother!” cried the doctor. Mrs. Wise was sewing just outside on the grass. “Here’s Weenie with the most alarming symptoms setting in.”