MISS SYBIL BARROW TO HER SCHOOL
FRIEND, MISS MINNIE HOBSON, OF
EDGBASTON, BIRMINGHAM
Santa Margherita,
Taormina, Sicily,
January 28.
My darling Min,—
You were a saucy girl to chaff me like that about the Honourable Mr. Winston. It didn't matter one bit to me whether we got to know him or not. Why should it? Even when he comes into the title he'll only be a viscount, and Lord Brighthelmston may live for years. It wasn't to meet him that we joined the viscountess, though I shouldn't wonder if she had something up her sleeve when she asked us to meet her in Cannes. Anyway, she'd taken a tremendous fancy to me. We got on awfully well together at first, but she needs a lot of living up to, and if she hadn't held a sort of salon everywhere we've been, with all kinds of swells, home-made and foreign, kootooing to her, and being introduced to us, I don't know but I should have persuaded Pa to drop the whole business long ago. She's a nice old lady, but sometimes, when you let yourself go, and are having a ripping time, she freezes up and looks at you as if you were some unknown species of animal
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