Monday, Jan. 21, 1929
Divine Providence!
Scarcely any one in England would think of calling Mrs. Stanley Baldwin "Lucy,"' except of course her husband, the Prime Minister. Even the smart friends of Miss Betty Baldwin, including some of London's most notorious titled set, would never refer to a "church" in her mother's presence as a "Godbox."* Therefore it was quite "in character" for Mrs. Baldwin to go, last week, to a quite old-fashioned little church bazaar.
By paying sixpence one was entitled to guess the names of a boy doll and a girl doll; and if one guessed both names correctly one might take the midgets home. Clearly this was no "lottery," this was not "gambling," and so Mrs. Baldwin took a sixpence from her purse and laid it charitably on the counter.
It's no use for me to guess," she smiled, "I could never guess their names in the wide world. I'm not clever at guessing," and the Prime Minister's wife passed on.
"But, Mrs. Baldwin!" cried the attendant at the doll booth, "You must guess. Please, you really must!" and the eyes of the attendant, a blooming, wholesome girl, twinkled, danced.
"Very well, my dear," said the Lady of Downing Street, "I really cannot guess, but we'll say their names are the same as my husband's and my own, 'Stanley' and 'Lucy'."
"They are! They are!" cried the dancing-eyed girl. "We named them 'specially, and I knew you'd guess!"
Commentators recalled that the Prime Minister's pious wife has said that she sees in his rise to Power the inscrutable working of "Divine Providence."
*Current ribald proposal of marriage: "Let's hop to a Godbox and get stitched."