not forgotten your kind invitation, but I am afraid I must give up all
idea of going to you this year. We hurried back because Mr. Hamilton-Wells
became homesick suddenly while we were abroad, and I don't think it will
be possible to get him to move again for some time. But won't you come to
us? Do, dear, and bring your just-come-out, and, I am sure, most charming,
Evadne for our autumn gayeties. If Mr. Frayling would come too we should
be delighted, but I know he has a poor opinion of _our_ coverts, and
I despair of being able to tempt him from his own shooting; and therefore
I ask _you_ first and foremost, in the hope that you will be able to
come whether he does or not.

"I have been thinking much of all you have told me about Evadne. She had
already struck me as being a most interesting child and full of promise,
and I do hope that now she is out of the schoolroom I shall see more of
her. I know you will trust her to me--although I do think that in parts of
her education you have been acting by the half light of a past time, and
following a method now out of date. I cannot agree, for instance, that it
is either right or wise to keep a girl in ignorance of the laws of her own
being, and of the state of the community in which she will have to pass
her existence. While she is at an age to be influenced in the right way
she should be fully instructed, by those she loves, and not left to obtain
her knowledge of the world haphazard from anyone with whom accident may
bring her acquainted--people, perhaps, whose point of view may not only
differ materially from her parents', but be extremely offensive to them.
The first impression in these matters, you know, is all important, and my
experience is that what you call 'beautiful innocence,' and what I
consider _dangerous ignorance_, is not a safe state in which to begin
the battle of life. In the matter of marriage especially an ignorant girl
may be fatally deceived, and indeed I know cases in which the man who was
liked well enough as a companion was found to be objectionable in an