Leaving Baby Behind.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 22 February 1927, Page 8

Leaving Baby Behind.

(By THE COUNTESS OP CAVAN.)

The Countess of Cavan, lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of York during the Australian tour, will, like the Duchess, be parted from her baby daughter, also named Elizabeth, for six months. She thus described her feelings just before she left her London home in an article in the "Weekly Dispatch": It is a wonderful prospect accompanying tr-e Duke and Duchess of York over all those miles. It would be more wonderful still if I could take iny babies with me! Babies! Well, perhaps Daphne is not a baby— ■he's over ten—but Elizabeth is. She's'only'two. I can realise to -the full how the Duchess must leel about her leaving her little Princess. The greater when a babe is but a'few months is the greatest and freest of all SE^J£f? BfV * h leaving our behind means heartache and tears, ' .

When I leave my baby for a week it seems a year. Six months will seem an eternity. It will be the same to the Duchess. It would be the same to every mother. Thanks to science, however, we shall have regular news of our babies. I have arranged for a \teekly message by wireless. It will tell mo how both the children are, and how I shall look fo'wairi to it! A few weeks after we arrive in Australia there will be a long letter from Daphne, with all the news. She will write me just the sort of letters I want. She will tell me*of baby and home—of teeth-cuttings and walks in the part, of the hundred and one other things which only children can write about and only mothers understand. Then, as the weeks go by, the sorrow of parting will give way to the joy of anticipation, the excitement of soon seeing the darlings once more Delightful thoughts! What a change w« shall see. My little Elizabeth will have growii—she will be talking quite well. It will all be very wonderful And more so, perhaps, for th° Duchess. She will nuss the first "Mum-mum"--- the first clear cry of •Tfanna"—and she will ocme back lo a 'little -!Prmcess >=with- quite a vocabularj-rr-probibly : a little toddler round the nursery floor. . " '"

It is wonderful how much the second six months of its life does for an i.ifant. AC nine months it will be weaned; at twche uiouMis it will be enjoying chicken, "ggs and milk puddings. Its tiny limbs will fill out; it will put on wei-jht. The Duchess will see a new little Pciueess whcu she goes to Bruton Street again. I shall look forward to the photographs and snapshots which will reach me time to time. These will show the progress and development of Elizabeth, so perhaps she will not be too much u bundle of surprise as when 1 see b.°.r at the end of June. It seems only the o f Jier diy that she was christened in the Guards' at Wellington Barracks. Like the Duchess , i ttle darling., she is fortunate in having the Queen and Princess Mary to keep a motherly eye on her, for U-e Qu»en and Princess Mary were her sponsors. There, I think I have to'd you all I can now. r simply adore the idea, of the trip and the wonderfill time we shall have T v ; . "Yes Trri c«n ; ng— there is plenty of time ... . Th\ car will do it in a few minutes. . . Yon packed th° praphs? Good! . . . Good-bye . . . Good-bye, darling Babs. . . mummy is going a long, long journey, but -"6he*ll -be back soon. . . . Good-bye, my pet. », . Come, L'aphne, we must g<?l ?, __