“‘This was terrible,’ he said. ‘How did it happen?’
“‘I forgot, I forgot, why I know not, but I forgot,’ I said, and my tears flowed again. He patted me on the back.
“‘Never mind,’ he said kindly, ‘but please don’t let it occur again.’”
Once when I was talking to this clever little lady the conversation turned on games.
“Games!” she exclaimed. “I know nothing of them: as a child I never had time to play, and when I was sixteen years old I had to keep myself and my family. Of late years I have been far too busy even to take up golf.”
Mrs. Maude has two charming daughters, quaint, old-fashioned little creatures, and some years their junior is a small brother.
The two girls were once invited to a fancy dress ball in Harley Street: it happened to be a Saturday, and therefore matinée day. Their mother arranged their dresses. The elder was to wear the costume of Lady Teazle, an exact replica of the one reproduced in this volume, and which Mrs. Maude wore when playing that part, while the younger was to be dressed as a Dutch bride, also a copy of one of Miss Emery’s dresses in the Black Tulip. They all lunched together, and as the mother was going off to the theatre, she told the nurse to see that the children were dressed properly, and take them to the house at a certain hour.
“Oh, but, mummy, we can’t go unless you dress us,” exclaimed the elder child; “we should never be right.” And therefore it was settled that the two little people should be arrayed with the exception of the final touches, and then driven round by way of the Haymarket Theatre, so that their mother might attend to their wigs, earrings, hat or cap, as the case might be.
What a pretty idea. The mother, who was attracting rounds of applause from a crowded house every time she went on the stage, running back to her dressing-room between the scenes, to drop down on her knees and attend to her little girls, so that they should be all right for their party.
Admiring the costume of the younger one, I said: