RITA'S PHILOSOPHY
I remember when Uncle Dick died, she sat holding Aunt Janie's hand, her eyes bulging out with real tears, and her voice so choked that she could not utter a syllable. Aunt Janie afterwards told a relation that "poor dear Lena was so upset that it was more of a trial than a pleasure to see her." But she handed Rita's beautifully worded letter round the family as a treasure of sympathy. (Rita explained her absence by saying that she knew her presence would be an intrusion on Aunt Janie's grief.)
Rita sends lovely flowers to her sick friends with a few well-chosen words on a gilt-edged card, whilst Lena goes and sits with them, "catching germs" as Rita expresses it, and when Lena has worn herself out and got ill too, her sick friends don't thank her for it.
The servants adore Rita, though she gives them more trouble than any one else. If there is a complaint to be made she gets Lena to do it, and when she loses her temper with her maid she gives her some article of clothing she does not
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