M.R. GLADSTONE have often stayed in Hawarden and the neighbourhood
during the last seventy years, and can add a few touches to the Provost of Worcester's portrait of the GOM.
On one occasion he was upstairs packing his bag, when Mrs. Gladstone, who was below, heard alarming thumps on the floor above, and discovered Mr. Gladstone jumping on a folded bath towel in which his sponge was con- cealed, 'the only thorough way, my dear, of drying a sponge.' At the tea table, he depre- cated pouring the dregs of the cup into the slop basin, as 'I firmly believe in continuity. One day it happened that Mrs. Gladstone was sitting with some friends in the drawing-room. when a theological question was discussed, without a satisfactory answer being found. A pious lady said, 'What a comfort to know that there is One Above who is able to tell us."Ah yes,' replied Mrs. Gladstone, 'I think William will be down in a few minutes; I hear him moving above.' Punch, strongly Conservative, parodied some lines of Longfellow's poem 'The Village Blacksmith,' applying them to the GOM. 'He goes on Sunday to the church And sits amonf his boys; He hears the parson pray and'preach, He hears his own sweet voice Reading the lessons in the church, And it makes his heart rejoice, It seems to him like an angel's voice Reading in Pkradise.
Yours faithfully, R. F. PECHEY Normandy Cottage, Alton, Hampshire
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