I’ll look in faith straight up to Thee,
Jesus, Immanuel!’
On November 28, 1864, Letitia left English shores, to join her uncle, Mr. St. George Tucker and his family, in India. Letters of Charlotte Tucker, referring to the event, have not come to hand; but she must have felt the separation very keenly, whatever might have been the precise reasons which led to the move. Letitia had now been practically her child for eighteen years; and a close tie existed between the two. But no doubt Charlotte looked upon the parting as of a very temporary nature; as merely sending her child away for a longer visit than any preceding. The real anguish of separation came a year later, when suddenly the young girl was summoned to her true Home.
The few following extracts lie between these two dates,—the going of Letitia to India, and the tidings of her death.
TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.
‘Jan. 3, 1865.
‘Many thanks, my dear Leila, for your affectionate note.... There was another nice cheerful note from my Letitia to-day. She wrote it when on the Red Sea, which she evidently found very warm, for she described the ship as a “hothouse,” and said that she and her fellow-passengers would be “fine exotics” before they arrived. There had been two Services on board on Sunday, and Letitia had heard two excellent sermons. Mary Egerton had her harmonium on board, which had been brought up from the hold, so there was nice hymn-singing too. How sweet the music must have sounded on the water! I think that, steaming over the Red Sea, one would have liked to have raised the song of the Israelites—
“Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea,
Jehovah hath triumphed, His people are free!”
‘My dear sailor is to leave us on the 17th or 18th for China. I believe that he is to travel part of the journey in the same vessel as the Cuthbert Thornhills, who were to have taken charge of Letitia had our first arrangements held good. They will have one Robin instead of the other. Poor dear Mrs. Thornhill, what a sad parting is before her! I had a loving note very lately from my Louis. He fears that he will not get leave to see his dear sister for a twelve-month.