| Description | Letter from Amelia Nyasa Laws, 7 Via Venti Settembre, Rome, to her relatives, regarding preparation for the Communion; many visitors left when the conscription bill was passed, and this has affected the congregation still further; Mrs. Rowat is in Florence; the Gibsons are to go to Friuggi; Mr. Gibson was careful to attend Dr. Fairweather's address; Uncle has decided to visit Genoa and perhaps Leghorn on his way north; the Presbytery meeting was better than expected, but everything is a compromise; Henderson tried to bargain; Miss Cooke is ill and has been granted three months' leave, thus giving Mr. Crozier a chance to work at Leghorn; Miss Cooke's behaviour was unseemly; Mr. Aitken is back at Naples and pleased about it; trouble over Uncle's obituary for Mr. Laing; references to Laing's suitability for promotion seem to have offended everyone; Mr. Irving's visit to Rome; Oscar Browning has been causing trouble and fighting with various hostesses; Miss Stewart has asked if Amelia will help with massage regularly at the S. Croce Hospital, but Aunt and Uncle do not want her near Italians and in any case they are leaving soon; the duties are very varied, anyway; Mrs. Gibson works there and says that Miss Stewart has a difficult temper; La Grave is no longer a possibility for the summer as the Oulx-Briançon route is used only for military purposes and the Grenoble route is very difficult with reduced transport; Italy is preparing entrenchments in the Ticino district; the Germans are straining Swiss neutrality; Uncle's northernmost colporteur is finding work difficult with the military activity; Amelia has written to the hotel at Chamonix asking if any convalescent cases are allowed back there now, so that she should have some work; Uncle is keen to see Dr. Fairweather in Genoa before Mr. Gibson returns from Friuggi; Mr. Irving's daughter Margaret is engaged, apparently to a surveyor she met on her way to New Zealand, who has been proposed as Minister of Agriculture in Tasmania; Mary Irving has been recommended by Admiral Fisher as secretary to the Duchess of Hamilton, though she is very unprepossessing in appearance; Aunt and Amelia were cleaning during Uncle's absence, even though the scirocco was bad; clearing out of Uncle's desk; men should tidy up more frequently and cut down on such accumulation of work; Miss Jazdowska complained that when the chimneys were cleaned, soot fell down into her fireplace [There were Jazdowskis associated with teaching and art in Aberdeen: James Bronislas Jazdowski, son of John, teacher in Aberdeen, graduated from Marischal College in 1856 and according to an annotation of the Search Room student list died in Rome in 1902]; movements of the Brocks; Miss Kembal is to take Muriel Brock and the Rodd boys home; visit of Baroness de Hahn; her explanation as to why she does not help at the Y.W., as Miss Morgan there regards her as a sinner and a liar; mention of Mr. Green's opinion of Scots determination; she has had her last lesson with him, but his wife wants him to teach her harmony. |