“‘And before I had time to turn round, in came his lordship. He took up a stool, sat down at the foot of the bed, and kindly asked Miss Nightingale how she was, expressing his sorrow at her illness, and thanking her and praising her for the good she had done for the troops. He wished her a speedy recovery, and hoped that she might be able to continue her charitable and invaluable exertions, so highly appreciated by every one, as well as by himself. “‘He then bade Miss Nightingale good-bye, and went away. As he was going I said I wished to apologize. “‘“No, no! not at all, my dear lady,” said Lord Raglan; “you did very right; for I perceive that Miss Nightingale has not yet received my letter, in which I announced my intention of paying her a visit to-day—having previously inquired of the doctor if she could be seen.”’”[15] The doctors, after her twelve days of dangerous illness, were urgent for Miss Nightingale’s instant return to England; but this she would not do: she was sure that, with time and patience, she would be able once more to take up her work at Scutari. Lord Ward placed his yacht at her disposal, and by slow degrees she made recovery, though Lord Raglan’s death, June 18, 1855, was a great grief and shock to her. Wellington said of Lord Raglan that he was a man who would not tell a lie to save his life, and he was also a man of great charm and benevolence, adored by his troops. He felt to the quick the terrible repulse of our troops before Sebastopol that June, having yielded his own counsels to those of France rather than break the alliance, and he died two days after the despatch was written in which he told the story of this event. Writing to the Duke of Newcastle in October, he had entreated for his army a little repose—that brave army, worn out, not only by the ordinary fatigues of a military campaign, and by the actual collecting of wood and water to keep life from extinction, but by cholera, sickness, and the bitter purgatorial cold of a black hillside in a Russian winter. “Repose!” echoes Kinglake with sardonic bitterness, and we too echo it, remembering how, two days afterwards, it was riding through the devil’s jaws at Balaclava, to hurl itself but a little later against its myriad assailants at Inkermann! Repose! uncomplaining and loyal, in the bitter grasp of winter on the heights of the Chersonese, holding day and night a siege that seemed endless, the allied armies had proved their heroism through the slow tragedy. And when at last, on the day of victory, amid the fury of the elements and the avenging fury of their own surging hearts, they grasped the result of their patient agony, though “Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well,”