[3]. Mrs. McDonald, matron of the School for Idiots, who had been nurse and housekeeper for my mother in Rome.
The delights of convalescence obliterate the memories of the sickness itself. “Dip” toast, prunes and the reading aloud of the “Leila” books we found very comforting.
Our literary activities seem to have been greatly stimulated at this period, although it must be confessed that they were principally carried on by sister Julia. It was she who wrote the plays that overcame our elders with laughter. It was she who, with my mother’s help, edited The Listener, a weekly periodical which chronicled all the doings of family, friends and the Stevenson School, touching also upon public affairs. Each issue covers four pages of large letter-paper. Some stories were contributed by our friend and schoolmate, Clara Gardner. The occasional editorials by my mother are in her own beautiful hand. But the main body of the paper was faithfully written by the little editor, in her quaint, crabbed, yet legible hand. The birth of our sister Maud was thus chronicled by Julia—then ten and a half years old:
Editor’s Table
A very curious little animal lies on the editor’s table this week. It does not understand the use of cup, plate or spoon, yet it feeds itself. It does not know any language, yet it makes itself understood. It never bought itself a dress, yet it has a whole wardrobe full of clothes. It does not know anybody, yet it has plenty of friends. Can you guess what it is? It is our little baby sister.
There were some questionings as to the name to be bestowed on the newcomer. My father suggested the Greek name of Thyrza, but the good, Anglo-Saxon name of Maud was finally and appropriately chosen. She was a beautiful baby—indeed, she has been beautiful all her life. Sister Julia began another editorial in The Listener, some five weeks later, apropos of the ceremony of weighing the infant:
Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king? George the Fourth is said to have expressed himself in this manner when, in his last illness, some water gruel was served to him in a silver bowl. I wonder whether gruel would taste better out of a silver dish, a silver spoon does not seem to add much to it.
Here my mother takes up the thread of the story.
The King had been used to the best of living—probably had always had as much plum-cake as he wanted [did you, ever?] and so it seemed rather an insult to set water gruel before him, even in so rich a bowl. We happened to make the same remark as his Majesty, to-day, when we saw our Baby Sister weighed in a porcelain dish—she looked so fat and funny.
In the opinion of Julia and Flossy, at this tender age, the only form of marriage offering any romance was a fleeing one, so to speak, consummated after an elopement. Thus in Julia’s tale of Leonora Mayre, the hero and heroine run away from England to America, where they are married. The sequel is decidedly original. Leonora, now Mrs. Clough, repents deeply the desertion of her parents. She returns, with her maid but without her husband, to England and to her father’s house.