GENERAL SIR EDWARD FULFORD, K.G.C., TO HIS SISTER MISS FULFORD
UNITED SERVICE CLUB, 29TH JUNE.
My Dear Charlotte,--I find I shall need at least a month to get
through the necessary business; so that I shall only have a week at
last for my dear mother and the party collected at New Cove. You
will have ample time to decide which of the nieces shall be asked to
accompany us, but you had better give no hint of the plan till you
have studied them thoroughly. After all the years that you have
accompanied me on all my stations, you know how much depends on the
young lady of our house being one able to make things pleasant to
the strange varieties who will claim our hospitality in a place like
Malta, yet not likely to flag if left in solitude with you. She
must be used enough to society to do the honours genially and
gracefully, and not have her head turned by being the chief young
lady in the place. She ought to be well bred, if not high bred,
enough to give a tone to the society of her contemporaries, and
above all she must not flirt. If I found flirtation going on with
the officers, I should send her home on the spot. Of course, all
this means that she must have the only real spring of good breeding,
and be a thoroughly good, religious, unselfish, right-minded girl;
otherwise we should have to rue our scheme. In spite of all you
would do towards moulding and training a young maiden, there will be
so many distractions and unavoidable counter-influences that the
experiment would be too hazardous, unless there were a character and
manners ready formed. There ought likewise to be cultivation and
intelligence to profit by the opportunities she will have. I should
not like Greece and Italy, to say nothing of Egypt and Palestine, to
be only so much gape seed. You must have an eye likewise to good
temper, equal to cope with the various emergencies of travelling.
N.B. You should have more than one in your eye, for probably the
first choice will be of some one too precious to be attainable.--
Your affectionate brother,