 As a mother , Lady Rosebery was presented with a dilemma : she was in fact already practically a mother to her husband who had no great feeling for a proximity to small babies . This was particularly evident in June 1880 when shortly after the birth of their first child Sybil , Rosebery wished to visit Germany for three months , to take a cure at a German spa ( he was recovering from what is now thought to have been a nervous breakdown ) . His wife <unk> accompanied him . However , Rosebery , clearly aware of his wife 's frustrated maternal instincts , reported that Hannah <unk> every detail of the daily letters from London concerning the baby , and that she never complained at the forced separation . 
