‘Good Babu Singha and his excellent wife will probably be in the house, but not chum with Europeans....
‘Only imagine my darling Laura dreaming of coming to Egypt to meet me!! But I doubt her being up to such a journey; and mine would be about as formidable a one. But the dream is one of “old,” not “young Love”!’
‘March 15.—Now, darling, to answer your objections to my spending the hot season at Batala.... I doubt that the risk to health from climate will be at all greater at Batala than at damp Amritsar. Always remember, love, that at the former place I am high above the ground, while at the latter I am on it. This makes an immense difference. The large inner room at Batala would be cooler than any room here....
‘I intend to take my large harmonium to Batala. It may be of immense use there. I suppose that I shall have charge of all the music; for I do not believe that either my Bhatija (nephew) or the Singhas know anything about it. It is of immense importance. Mr. R. told me yesterday that the Rev. C., perhaps the most valuable convert in all the Panjab (he is a Bengali), was first brought to Christ by listening to Church music. It carried his soul away! I wish that I were more competent for the charge; but I must hope and pray that God may bless my little attempts to serve Him by music. I am so thankful that age has not affected my voice; at least, it does not seem to me to have done so.’
The latter fact would tell little. People in advancing years are seldom able to judge of their own voices. Others, however, speak of the unusual manner in which Miss Tucker’s voice lasted. It had never been one of much power or sweetness; but she had always had a sensitive ear, and had sung well; and to the end she still sang in tune, even when the voice itself became cracked with age.
One other point in the above may be noted. Miss Tucker was throughout anxious to make the best of her beloved Batala; and undoubtedly this was a case of ‘making the best.’ If Amritsar was damp, so also must Batala have been,—at all events, in the seasons of heavy floods, when it was often impossible to get about, from the state of the roads. There were times when Anarkalli was all but a veritable island, in the midst of a kind of lake. This could hardly be regarded as healthy, while it lasted.
TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.
March 28, 1878.
‘I am to have my “pen,” about which my dharm-nieces joke a great deal. Mera Bhatija[78] is going to cut a slice off his magnificent dining-room, to make a cool retreat for the Auntie. As a bamboo-screen right across would be very unsightly, if seen in its bareness, I am going to have mine covered on both sides. Fancy a screen, twenty feet long and six feet high! I have been very fortunate in securing a most suitable cloth for the cover. A bedroom chintz would have looked quite out of character, but I have bought a native cloth, with an Oriental pattern, very tapestry-like, old-fashioned conventional flowers and birds on a blue ground. It is such a pattern as one might see in a picture, and will not destroy the effect of the Oriental hall. Every one who saw it at once fixed upon it as the thing....
‘Emily has ordered eight chairs for my rooms,—I had two of my own,—and your beloved Mother knows that I am splendidly supplied with cushions; such dainty cushions! I like my rooms to look rather nice, as young Panjab may get an extra polish, if admitted to an English lady’s drawing-room.’