The Letters of Her Mother to Elizabeth

Transcriber's Note: Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. Variant spellings have been retained. Although not present in the original, the following table of contents has been included for readers' convenience.
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD LONDON & NEW YORK · MDCCCCI
Copyright, 1901 By John Lane
FIFTH EDITION
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
Every one who has read The Visits of Elizabeth, in which a girl of seventeen describes her adventures to her mother in a series of entertaining and clever letters, has instinctively asked the question: What sort of woman was Elizabeth's Mother?
Perhaps an answer that will satisfy all will be found in the following Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth.

Monk's Folly, 27th July
Dearest Elizabeth:
I am glad you reached Nazeby without any mishap. Your letter was quite refreshing, but, darling, do be more careful of your grammar. Remember, one never talks grammar now-a-days in Society, it isn't done; it is considered very Newnham and Girton and patronising, but one should always know how to write one's language. Because the fashion might change some day, and it would be so parvenu to have to pick it up.
As I told you before you started on your round of visits, you will have a capital opportunity of making a good match. You are young, very pretty, of the bluest blood in the three kingdoms, and have a fortune—to be sure this latter advantage, while it would be more than a sufficient dot to catch a twelfth-century French duke, would be considered by an impecunious British peer quite beneath contempt. Your trump card, Elizabeth, is your manner, and I count upon that to do more for you than all the other attributes put together. Nature and my training have made you a perfect specimen of an ingénue , and I beseech you, darling, do me credit. Please forgive the coarseness of what I have said, it is only a little plain speaking between us; I shan't refer to it again; I know I can trust you.