Hannah Banks, who years before had been my own nurse, was now in retirement at Lowestoft, living with a married niece on the annuity that my father had left her; but she expressed her willingness to re-enter service, and a day or so later her motherly old face beamed once more upon me. “To think of you,” said Hannah, “bringing up a child—and a little girl at that—without anyone to help! The idea! Of course I came. I’m not as strong as I used to be, but thank God, I’m tough.” Rose took to her instantly, and they established themselves in a wing of the house, which, for too long much too big for me, was now becoming human again. Hannah was vigilant but not fussy: her especial qualities were a kind heart and an unsleeping thoughtfulness. She could hardly write her own name, and her reading was confined to the simplest words; but what are reading and writing compared with the conduct of life? What I wanted from Hannah was wholesome solicitude and old English simplicity; I could supply the rest myself, and later on there would be some regular lessons. The fact that Hannah had stood in the relation of nurse also to me made her a little contemptuous of my present parental airs. You can’t bring up a boy from the cradle to boarding-school without detecting lapses from the god, and these can be remembered even when he is adult and your employer. Nor, after bringing up a boy like that, can you ever quite lose the feeling that he is still something of an infant. Since, to nice women, all men are still something of infants (and, if sensible, willing to be so), this does not ordinarily matter; but the attitude may lead to embarrassing results when one is endeavouring to cut a figure of authority, with a child of one’s own or in one’s own charge. How can a lecture on hygiene be effective when in the middle of it an officious old lady crosses the lawn with a pair of goloshes in her hands, and says: “Now, Master Julius, put these on directly. The grass is wringing wet!” For I was still Master Julius to Hannah. * * * * * There was, besides Hannah, Suzanne. It was one of my peculiarities—and how the countryside came to forgive it I never understood—to employ a French cook. I had found her on a walking tour with Theodore Allinson in Normandy in 1880; she was keeping a wayside inn near Lillebonne, and her husband having just died, and there being no children, she longed to get away to a totally new environment. She was then about thirty-two. Since she made wonderful soups out of nothing and could set a perfect omelette before you almost before the order was given, I suggested that she might like to try England and take service with me; and she jumped at the idea; and with me she remained, capable, quick and amusing.