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Show 10 PRINCESS MARY'S (:‘II'T l§()()l\' have been an ambassador. The Colonel maintained that ainb:1ss:ulors are like bishops and cannot share their ollicial titles witli\lt,l‘ien;lwivcs, particularly after they are dead. My ‘own view was that It. . is. ,. minis wanted to be styled " the Honourable it would he disconi teous to deny , . . _ . . her the title. \Ve had hardly settled down again atter deciding this .point when Mrs. Mimms upset-us still more seriously. She gave a Christmas '1 rec to the village children. At first we thought that this would not matter to any one except the vicar. \\ C were mistaken about that. Mrs. Miuuiis made us all help. The Colonel and I spent a long afternoon on a step-ladder sticking candles on the branches. I‘lankly. who is a lean. yellow little man. was made to dress hunsell up as " I‘ather Christmas." \Ve got no dinner on the evening of the party. and very nearlv had to dance with the children afterwards. The presents which Mrs. "Miinms distributed to the children were of the most gorgeous and expensive kind. \Ve all agreed that she must he enormously rich, and the Colonel said that she, would demoralise the whole village. She certainly denioraliscd us. \Vc found ourselves invited to dinner at the Manor House twice. sometimes three times. a week. and It was no had a standing invitation to supper every Sunday night use refusing the invitations. I tried that twice: but Mrs. Minnns simply came round to my house in her motor and fetched me: The Colonel complained bitterly. He has been writing a hook on Chhota Nagpur ever since I knew him. and he said that he hated being Inter- rupted in the evenings. He only dined with Mrs. Mimms in order to avoid unpleasantness with his wife, who wanted to go. IIankly said plainly that Mrs. Mimms had a very good cook. and we all came in the end to accept that as our excuse for dining with her, It is. I know, s-arcely credible, but last Easter she dragged us into private theatrieals. By that time we had agreed that Mrs. Mimms. in spite of her annoying lack of repose. was a very kind-hearted woman. and we did not wish to snub her in any way. My own part in the play let Inc in for a love scene with Mrs. Challenger, the most grotesquely absurd thing imaginable, for the lady is sixty at least and enormously fat. I should never have agreed to do it. however good- hearted Mrs. Miinms might be, if Hankly had not been cast for the part of an heroic Christian curate, and I knew he would look even more foolish than I did when I kissed Mrs. Challengers left ear. Hankly hated being an heroic Christian curate and didinot do the part at all well. "'e got through the theatricals in June, and alter that. except for a couple of picnics every week, we had a comparatively quiet time until the THE SPY war broke out. 11 Mrs. Mimms broke out at the same time. All festivities. even picnics, stopped at once, 01' course. and we all he ' 11 to take life very strenuously. Mrs. Miunns outdid us easily in every form of activity. She began by erecting a tlagstalf at the Manor House gates and hoisting an enormous American flag on it, the largest American flag I have ever seen. The Colonel, who had his motor decorated with a French and a Belgian flag as well as a Union Jack. said that Mrs. Minnns's Stars and Stripes were, under the circumstances, rather bad form. Hankly and I agreed with him, and we made the vicar speak to her about it. She explained to him that she had hoisted it entirely for our good. It was, so she told the vicar. and he told us. the only flag in the world which the Germans would respect, and that when the Uhlans entered our Village we could all congregate in perfect safety under its folds. The Colonel was furious-we were all rather angry; at the id at that the Germans would ever set foot in England ; but there was no denying that Mrs. Mimms meant to be kind when she hoisted the flag. Besidcs, she is a ditlicult woman to argue with, and we did not quite see how we could make her take the thing down. Hankly and I more or less torgave her. though, as it appeared, the Colonel did not, when she came forward at a meeting summoned by the vicar and offered to turn the Manor House into a hospital for wounded soldiers. The generosity of her proposal actually .stagu gered us. She intended, so she said-and I quite believe itato turn out all the existing furniture of the house, fit the place up with the latest sanitary devices, hire two surgeons and a competent staff of nurses who should be under her own personal supervision. \\"e at once wired to the \Var Office and expected to be thanked gratefully. As a matter of fact we never got any official aekuowledgmcut of the offer at all. What we (lid getfior rather what Mrs. Mimms g0t-was a letter from Lord Mauhy's solicitor pointing out that the agreement under which she had taken the Manor House did not allow of her getting rid of the furniture or using the place in any way except as an ordinary dwelling. I thought that Lord Manhy was a little unsympathetic, and that the \Var ()tlice might very well have replied to our telegram, but the Colonel took quite a dill'ercnt line. He said that Mrs. Miuuns was an interfering old woman who deserved to he snubbed. \Ve all hoped that after this set-back she would he a little subdued and allow us to manage our own war in our own way. For a time she kept tolerably quiet. She contented herself with making shirts and subscribing to various funds like any ordinary woman. WNW! Mflu‘h‘ \fiml |