'The carriage is to come for us in an hour. We have been here three days, and every one has been as kind and as enthusiastic as they are always. We go to Sandringham on Friday; the Princess asked for Challis to play for her guests that night; the Dowager Empress is to be there, and others.
'Then at Manchester an immense farewell concert on Monday; Mr. Warner says two thousand seats are already booked to hear the "Wonder-Child"; another at Plymouth on Friday; a rush up to Edinburgh, just for her to appear at the Philharmonic. They are only giving her forty pounds for the night, but Mr. Warner is unwilling for her to lose the Scotch connection.
'Then peace, perfect peace, and home. I sit and try to fancy the changes the six years have made in the home. I am glad you have had two new bedrooms built; that will allow you to have a study again, sweetheart, and Hermie a drawing-room—sixteen is sure to be hankering for one. The furniture is looking a little shabby, I know; but of course that can be easily remedied, and I have always had my boxes stuffed with art vases and bits of brass and bronze, ready for when the good time came. You have probably laid down new carpets long ere this in all the rooms, but I shall bring some rugs and Eastern squares, for I doubt if your back-block towns have supplied what would satisfy my now cultured taste.
'I suppose people wonder at you still being stuck to the Civil Service at a wretched two hundred and fifty pounds a year. Isn't the prevailing idea that we are rolling in money? There is surprisingly little for all the enthusiasm there has been—I think Mr. Warner said he had banked three thousand pounds for her—all the rest goes in expenses, which are enormous. We are obliged to be at the best hotels, and to be dressed up-to-date; that runs away with big sums. And the advertising that Mr. Warner says is so necessary swallows gigantic amounts. This has been the first year with much profit. Sometimes when I dress my little girlie in her Paris frocks I think of Hermie, making last season's do again, perhaps. Did the last box of Challis's frocks do for Flossie? The lady-help, I am sure, will have been able to cut them down.
'Do not let us think of the future, sweetheart, I cannot bear it yet. I cannot leave you any more, you must not be left; Challis has had her meed of her mother now, and it is the turn for the others. Yet Mr. Warner says it must be kept up, this life of hers, this Wandering Jew life. It is the price great artists pay. But the child is brave.
'"You shall not have it any more, mamma," she said when I read this out; "you shall go home to daddie for always now."
'But when I looked at her face it was pale, and there was that wan look in it that comes sometimes. To think of the little tender thing bearing all this alone!
'But we must not think of the future, sweetheart; we must not think of it for an instant. You will come to Sydney to meet us? Perhaps only you. And we will come straight home to Wilgandra with you. If she ruins her chances for ever, she shall have one month's quiet home before the Sydney season begins. Mr. Warner will try to prevent this, but I shall be very firm. Then you must get leave, and children and all, we will go to Sydney together, and you shall hear the darling play. To think you have none of you ever seen great audiences carried away by her little fingers!
'Ask the lady-help not to do up my bedroom for me. I want to see the faded pink and white hangings, and the sofa with the green roses on it, and the knitted counterpane that grandma made—just as they were when I left them.
'Oh, my little home, not beautiful, not even very comfortable, stuck away in that hot little town hundreds of miles from Sydney—my heart is breaking for you!'