counterfoils, or if reminded filled them up "from memory" so that
they didn't tally; she signed her name, if there was any choice of
blank spaces, in quite the wrong place.

So, invariably, tactful secretaries or assistant secretaries were
told off to explain to her--ever so nicely--that "she was no
business woman" (this, to the daughter of wholesale manufacturers,
sounded rather flattering), and that though she was invaluable as a
"name," as a patroness, or one of eighteen Vice Presidents, she was
of no use whatever as a worker.

She had no country house to place at the disposal of the Government
as a convalescent home. Michael after a few experiments forbade her
offering any hospitality at No. 1 Park Crescent to invalid officers.
Such as were entrusted to her in the spring of 1915 soon found that
she was--as they phrased it--"a pompous little, middle-class fool,"
wielding no authority. They larked in the laboratory with Red Cross
nurses, broke specimens, and did very unkind and noisy things ...
besides smoking in both the large _and_ the small dining-rooms. So,
after the summer of 1915, she lived very much alone, except that she
had the Adams children from Marylebone to spend the day with her
occasionally.

Poor Mrs. Adams, though a valiant worker, was very downcast and
unhappy. She confided to Mrs. Rossiter that although she dearly
loved her Bert--"and a better husband I defy you to find"--he never
seemed all hers. "Always so wrapped up in that Miss Warren or 'er
cousin the barrister." And no sooner had war broken out than off he
was to France, as a kind of missionary, she believed--the Young
Men's Christian Something or other; "though before the War he didn't
seem particular stuck on religion, and it was all she could do to
get him sometimes to church on a Sunday morning. Oh yes: she got 'er
money all right; and she couldn't say too much of Mr. and Mrs.
Rossiter's kindness. There was Bert, not doin' a stroke of work for
the Professor, and yet his pay going on all the same. Indeed she was
putting money by, because Bert was kep' out there, and all found."

However his two pretty children were some consolation to Mrs.
Rossiter, whom they considered as a very grand lady and one that was
lavishly kind.

Mrs. Rossiter tried sometimes in 1915 having working parties in her
house or in the studio; and if she could attract workers gave them
such elaborate lunches and plethoric teas that very little work was
done, espe