Mr Gladstone as a Grandfather.

Manawatu Herald, 26 April 1892, Page 3

Mr Gladstone as a Grandfather.

Sir Edwin Arnold, writing to an American paper, gives the following extract from a letter, he had lately received fi om an ." old and familiar friend" of the Gladstones :—M r Gladstone's second daughter, Mary Drew, who -must be nearly or quite forty years old, had her first living baby about twenty months ago. It I came like the child of a miracle — unexpectedly f for her first little one was born dead, and nearly entailed the death of her mother, so that nothing seemed less probable : than that w ,she should ever give, birth to another, child. I'ou would readily imagine, therefore, .what the advent of. such a. baby meant in such .sjftf I affectionate .household; The little girl, is simply a chartered libertine, the undisputed chatelaine, in fact, of Hawaulen Castle. She can just toddle about from room to room, and she brings a ray of sunlight with her wherever she goes. I never saw a prettier sight than when she just now ran through the open door, which divides the drawing room from the Grand Old Man's sanctuary, and pulling at the lappets of. his dressing-gown drew him imperiously away from. Homer or the Blue Books, or whatever was engaging him. The first intimation we heard in- the next room was a peal of laughter on Mr Gladstone's part, at the obvious necessity of capitulating to that daring . i nvasion , as \ musicar and hearty as ever came -from human lips, for his laugh, as you well know, is one of his greatest attractions Presently the Old Man and the little' child, separated by eighty years of time, came hand in hand together into the drawing room. Mrs Gladstone runs to the piano and strikes up a lively waltz tune, and in a second the two partners are dancing together!" the Grand Old Man putting into his pirouettes a lot of funny,-old-fashioned little steps, learned. of our great grandmothers seventy-five years ago, -which it was impossible to view without delight and applause, although so much pathos minglea with comedy in the touching scene.