Already, in some ways she seemed older than her erratic little mother, of whom, in a droll fashion, she assumed a sort of charge.

She was a born housewife.
"Mamma, you have fordotten your wings," Clover would hear her saying.
"Mamma, you has a wip in your seeve, you must mend it," or "Mamma, don't fordet dat your teys is in the top dwawer,"-- all these reminders and advices being made particularly comical by the baby pronunciation.

Rose's theory was that little Rose was a messenger from heaven sent to buffet her and correct her mistakes.
"The bane and the antidote," she would say.

"Think of my having a child with powers of ratiocination!" Rose came down the night of her arrival after a long, freshening nap, looking rested and bonny in a pretty blue dress, and saying that as little Rose too had taken a good sleep, she might sit up to tea if the family liked.

The family were only too pleased to have her do so.