His sister, Lady Ernestine, was rather touchy in the matter of Devonshire clotted cream. As Mount Edgcumbe was just over the border in Cornwall, and as clotted cream was made in Cornwall as well as in Devonshire, she resented its being called Devonshire cream and used to call it Cornish cream; but when she stayed with us, not wishing to concede the point and yet unwilling to hurt our feelings, she used to call it West-country cream.
Another delightful guest was Miss Pinkie Browne, who was Irish, gay, argumentative, and contradictious, with smiling eyes, her hair in a net, and an infectious laugh. As a girl she had broken innumerable hearts, but had always refused to marry, as she never could make up her mind. She was extremely musical, and used to sing English and French songs, accompanying herself, with an intoxicating lilt and a languishing expression. As Dr. Smyth says about Tosti’s singing, it was small art, but it was real art. And her voice must have had a rare quality, as she was about fifty when I heard her. Such singing is far more enjoyable than that of professional singers, and makes one think of Tosti’s saying: “Le chant est un truc.” She would make a commonplace song poignantly moving. She used to sing a song called “The Conscript’s Farewell”:
“You are going far away, far away, from poor Jeanette,
There’s no one left to love me now, and you will soon forget;”
of which the refrain was:
“Oh, if I were Queen of France,
Or still better Pope of Rome,
I would have no fighting men abroad,
No weeping maids at home.”