‘Aug. 1, 1864.
‘Your and your dear husband’s sweet notes quite added to the cheerfulness of our breakfast-table. Even Fanny did not appear knocked down by your tender scolding. She, for the first time since Tuesday, came to breakfast. She still needs great care, for the cold was on her chest, and even speaking is liable to make her cough. Mother highly approves of your plan of coming to town. She desires me to say that she knows that her face is before you, as yours is before her. Dear Fanny will probably not start for Brighton till Wednesday week, so she will have the pleasure of welcoming you, and I am sure that you will try not to let her be loquacious....
‘Many thanks for your kind present of the music. I am going to have it printed by converted Jews, and the entire profits devoted to the Society for the Conversion of Jews; so that it will be a little offering from us both to one of the holiest of causes.... I take the expense of the edition of 500 copies. They are to be sold for 1s. apiece; so if all are sold there is a contribution of £25 clear to the Society.... I am rather hopeful that the whole edition will go off before Christmas; for one shilling is not a formidable sum, especially when people can get a new song and help a good cause at the same time.... I take great pleasure in this little piece of business. I have been quite haunted by the music. I am ordering the plate to be preserved, in case of a Second Edition being required. So Mrs. Hamilton is going to come out as a Composer!’
TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.[10]
‘March 31, 1865.
‘My dear God-daughter,—I shall like to think of you particularly to-morrow, because it is the Anniversary of the day when your dear parents in church solemnly presented their precious little first-born babe to God; and I stood there to answer for her. Dear Leila, may each return of that day find you drawing nearer and nearer to Him who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” If we could only feel in our hearts that He really does love us, and that He deigns to care whether we love Him, what a motive it would be for doing everything as in His sight! We are too apt to think of our Saviour as very far off, and with so many to care for that we are almost beneath His notice. But this is wrong. The Sun shines and sparkles on every dewdrop in a field, as much as if it were the only dewdrop in the world. He does not pass it over, because it is little; he makes it beautiful in his light, and then draws it up towards himself.... I wish that I could come and pay you a visit; but I do not see how I am to leave Grandmamma as long as dear Aunt Fanny is an invalid. I seem wanted at home.’
It may have been somewhere about this year, or not very long before it, that Charlotte wrote the following pretty and graceful lines:—
‘Each silver thread that glitters in the hair,
Is like a wayside landmark,—planted there
To show Earth’s pilgrims, as they onward wend,