‘Good-night, my Leila. May the Almighty make you, my dear Godchild, as unselfish, conscientious, and lowly as was the loved one by whose grave I am to stand to-morrow.’
Although the plan of living with Mr. and Mrs. St. George Tucker was at no time regarded as a permanent arrangement for the remainder of Charlotte Tucker’s life, yet it actually lasted six years. For about eight months from September 1869 they all remained at Wickhill. In 1870 they removed to Windlesham, in Surrey; and in the following year, 1871, they again moved to ‘Woodlands,’ at Binfield in Berkshire, nine miles or so from Reading, and only about two and a half miles from Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton’s home, Firlands, near Bracknell. Charlotte had, therefore, from that time not only the interest of her little nephew and two little nieces in the house, but also of her sister Laura’s children within three miles. The companionship of a very favourite brother and of his affectionate wife, together with these little ones, work among the poor, writing, and many other occupations, made her life still a busy and a bright one.
In one letter written to a niece from Firlands, in 1870, she describes ‘the rural seclusion of this lovely place. I am charmed with Firlands, and the groves of fragrant pine in which I wander every morning.’ In another letter, dated February 1871, she says: ‘I hasten to give you the good news that Uncle St. George has taken “Woodlands” for seven years. I am so glad, and I am sure that you will be so also.’ This was to her Godchild. Thus she entered upon the final stage of her English life. Before the close of those seven years Charlotte Tucker was in India.
The following extracts from letters belong all to the two or three years after her Mother’s death:—
TO MISS LAURA V. TUCKER.[18]
‘Feb. 10, 1870.
‘I took Sir Frederick and Lady Abbott[19] to-day to the Infant School at Bracknell. They seemed to be much pleased, and so I am sure were the Infants, as their visitors treated them with sugar-plums and lemon-cakes, in return for a number of songs.... A translation of my War and Peace has been made by Madame de Lambert, and is coming out in the Musée des Enfants,—under the name, I believe, of Le Soldat Aveugle.’
TO THE SAME.
‘Dec. 12, 1870.
‘A lady was here the other day, who has a curious taste for different creatures. She has had a slow-worm round her arm as a bracelet—has kept an oyster which seemed to know her—and taught frogs to come out of the water at the sound of their names. One day, when she was quite young, she showed an old gentleman one of her dear snakes, coiled up. He thought it an imitation-one, and said something about good imitations,—when the reptile began to hiss at him.