“Why, you have got on your mother’s dress.”
“No, it’s not mother’s,” she replied. “It’s my dress, and my shoes, and my stockings—all my very own; but it’s mother’s gold cap, and mother’s earrings, and mother’s necklace, and mother’s apron—with a tuck in,” and she nodded her wise little head.
This was a simple child, not like the small American girl whose mother was relating wonderful stories of her precocity to an admiring friend, when a shrill voice from the corner called out:
“But you haven’t told the last clever thing I said, mamma,” evidently wishing none of her brilliant wit to be lost.
They looked sweet, those two children of Mrs. Maude’s, and the way the elder one attended upon her smaller sister was pretty to see.
In a charming little house near the Brompton Oratory Mrs. Maude lived for years, surrounded by her family, perfectly content in their society. She is in every sense a thoroughly domesticated woman, and warmly declares she “loves housekeeping.”
One cannot imagine a happier home than the Maudes’, and no more charming gentleman walks upon the stage than this well-known descendant of many distinguished army men. Mr. Maude was at Charterhouse, one of our best public schools, and is a most enthusiastic old Carthusian. So is General Baden-Powell, whose interest in the old place went so far as to make him spend his last night in England among his old schoolfellows at the City Charterhouse when he returned invalided on short leave from the Transvaal. The gallant soldier gave an excellent speech, referring to Founders’ Day, which they were then commemorating, and delighted his boy hearers and “Ancient Brethren” equally.
On Charterhouse anniversaries Mr. Maude drops his jester’s cap and solemnly, long stick in hand, takes part in the ceremony at the old Carthusian Church made popular by Thackeray’s Newcomes.
Cyril Maude was originally intended for another profession, but, in spite of family opposition, elected to go upon the stage, and as his parents did not approve of such a proceeding, he commenced his theatrical career in America, where he went through many vicissitudes. He began in a Shakespearian rèpertoire company, playing through the Western mining towns of the States, where he had to rough it considerably.
“I even slept on a bit of carpet on a bar-room floor one night,” he said; “but our beautiful company burst up in ’Frisco, and I had to come home emigrant fashion, nine days and nine nights in the train, with a little straw mattress for my bed, and a small tin can to hold my food. They were somewhat trying experiences, yet most interesting, and gave great opportunities for studying mankind. I have played in every conceivable sort of play, and once ‘walked on’ for months made up as Gladstone in a burlesque, to a mighty dreary comic song.”