Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/233

MRS. GLADSTONE giving the subscribers no privileges either in admitting patients or in the management of the Home. The money was handed over to the Committee who were responsible for everything, and applications for admission were made as simple as possible. Mrs. Gladstone herself attended the meetings of the Convalescent Home Selection Committee at the London Hospital, and made patient and sympathetic inquiries of the applicants. She also on those occasions, as far as her time allowed, visited the wards and showed her interest in patients and nurses. And she often paid the patients at Woodford Hall visits which were a source of intense pleasure. She had the gift when talking to them of conveying her real personal interest in them each individually, and they felt no shyness in her society. Sometimes she would sit down at the piano and play dance music for them; they generally chose country dances like Sir Roger de Coverley in which the older people could join, and a very merry time they had. Her visits ceased in 1894, but her interest never flagged. During the last weeks of Mr. Gladstone's illness, a letter of application to her from a girl who wished to be received into the Home was put aside and forgotten. When Mrs. 197