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                              THE LETTERS
                             OF HER MOTHER
                              TO ELIZABETH


                                [Device]


                       JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD
                     LONDON & NEW YORK. _MDCCCCI_




                           _Copyright, 1901_
                              BY JOHN LANE


                             FIFTH EDITION


                     UNIVERSITY PRESS. JOHN WILSON
                      AND SON. CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




NOTE


Every one who has read "The Visits of Elizabeth," in which a girl of
seventeen describes her adventures to her mother in a series of
entertaining and clever letters, has instinctively asked the question:
"What sort of woman was Elizabeth's Mother?"

Perhaps an answer that will satisfy all will be found in the following
"Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth."




THE LETTERS OF HER MOTHER TO ELIZABETH




LETTER I


                                                 MONK'S FOLLY, 27th July

DEAREST ELIZABETH:

I am glad you reached Nazeby without any mishap. Your letter was quite
refreshing, but, darling, do be more careful of your grammar. Remember,
one never talks grammar now-a-days in Society, it isn't done; it is
considered very Newnham and Girton and patronising, but one should
always know how to write one's language. Because the fashion might
change some day, and it would be so _parvenu_ to have to pick it up.

As I told you before you started on your round of visits, you will have
a capital opportunity of making a good match. You are young, very
pretty, of the bluest blood in the three kingdoms, and have a
fortune--to be sure this latter advantage, while it would be more than
a sufficient _dot_ to catch a twelfth-century French duke, would be
considered by an impecunious British peer quite beneath contempt. Your
trump card, Elizabeth, is your manner, and I count upon that to do more
for you than all the other attributes put together. Nature and my
training have made you a perfect specimen of an _ingenue_, and I beseech
you, darling, do me credit. Please forgive the coarseness of what I have
said, it is only a little plain speaking between us; I shan't refer to
it again; I know I can trust you.

{_These Horrid Smiths_}

From what you write I gather that the Marquis of Valmond is _epris_ with
Mrs. Smith. Horrid woman! the Chevingtons have met her. Mrs. Chevington
was here this morning to enquire after my neuralgia. She said that Mr.
Smith met his wife in Johannesburg five years ago before he "arrived."
He used to wear overalls, and carry a pick on his shoulder, and spent
his days digging in the earth, but he stopped at sunset, as I should
think he well might, and invariably went to the same inn to refresh
himself, where Mrs. Smith's mother cooked his dinner and Mrs. Smith
herself gave him what she called a "corpse-reviver" from behind the bar.
At night, a great many men who dug in the earth with Mr. Smith would
come for "corpse-revivers," and they called Mrs. Smith "Polly," and the
mother "old girl." And one day Mr. Smith found a nugget as big as a
roc's egg when he was digging in the earth, and after that he stopped.
The funny part was that "Polly" always said he would never find
anything, and he had a wager with her that if he did she should marry
him. So that is the story of their courtship and marriage, and they have
millions. Mrs. Chevington vouches for the truth of it all, for Algy
Chevington was out in Johannesburg at the time, and he dug in the same
hole with Mr. Smith and knows all about him and "Polly," only Algy never
found anything, for the flowers in Mrs. Chevington's hat were in the
bonnet she wore all last spring. But let us leave these horrid Smiths; I
am sure they are horrid. I can't understand how Lady Cecilia puts up
with them. Mrs. Chevington says she hears Sir Trevor is one of the
directors in the Yerburg Mine. Algy called him a guinea-pig, and said he
wished he was one.

{_An Eligible Parti_}

Lord Valmond