10/10/1882.
It was a pleasing surprise to me, dear niece, to receive to day the nicely dried plants, collected — I suppose — by you and your brother. As I was only once in your locality,1 I got few plants, merely passing through on my way to the Flinders- & Elders-Ranges.2 It was in the spring also, and I was then only about your age; so the life with all its hopes — many never realized — was yet quite before me. These plants now remind me forcibly of those early days of my wanderings. They are worth to the Gov. Collection here 7/6d; so if you think it worth while to continue collecting, and will keep book about these trifling items of money, I will send a post office order, when ever the value at any time is one £ or more. The form of receipt (to be passed here to the treasury) should be:
Received from Baron Sir F. Von Mueller, M.D., one pound Sterling for dried plants from near Clare.3
| £1/—/— |
Your Signature |
It ought to be a pleasurable occupation for your brother on Sundays after church; but bear in mind as a sensible young Lady, who honorably strikes out a path of her own in the Gov. Service, that that Service must in no way suffer through such byework. I had just a letter this day from your brother Edward also.4
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Please cite as “FVM-82-10-10,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on