CHAPTER XV
1875
BESIDE NIAGARA
There can be no mistake about Charlotte Tucker’s enjoyment of fresh sights and scenes across the Atlantic, or about the fact that increasing years had at least not dimmed her appreciation of beauty. Most kind and warm hospitality was shown to her at Quebec, at Montreal, and at Toronto. She was met at Oakville Station by her younger nephew, Charles Tucker,—the latter in ‘a state of joyous expectation’ which had kept him awake through three previous nights. Then followed a welcome from his wife, in their ‘pretty little home,’ elsewhere described by her as ‘a Canadian settler’s little farmhouse.’
While there, finding the life quiet, and plenty of time on her hands, she ‘took to Persian characters,’ as ‘an interesting riddle to solve,’ and also worked hard at her Hindustani, spending many hours over both.
Also she insisted on doing in Canada as Canadians do,—making her own bed, and even essaying to accomplish some ironing. Perhaps the last attempt did not meet with brilliant success. She wrote home about it:—
‘“‘Though seldom sure if e’er before
That hand had ironed linen o’er ...”
the great matter is that the things are clean; but I own I am glad that I shall have a dhobi in India.’
Another day she wrote to Mrs. Hamilton: ‘The little maid here amuses me. She is very fond of music, and likes me to sing for her. She asked me—kindly—if I would like my boots cleaned, and as I thought that I should, the little dear cleaned them, and brought them to me to show off her work,—as a six-year-old child of the house might have done. She looks such an innocent duck!’
An expedition to Niagara was achieved with much success; after which she wrote to one of her aunts in England: ‘My nephews think me amazingly strong, and yet I have become almost a teetotaller. Except your little bottle of sherry, I have only tasted wine twice since I left you. How I did enjoy your lemon-juice!’