society, over whom a strange change comes when they cross their own threshold. Sidney Herbert was never more brilliant, never more charming, never more witty than when alone with his mother, his wife, his sisters, or his children. “Nowhere was he seen to greater advantage than in his own home. He delighted in country life, and took a keen and almost boyish interest in its sports and pursuits, into the enjoyment of which he threw himself with a zest and fulness not common among busy men ... a good shot, a bold rider, and an expert fisherman, he was welcomed by the country gentlemen as one of themselves, and to this he owed much of his great popularity in his own country. But it was also due to the unfailing consideration shown by him to those of every class around him, and the sure trust in his responsive sympathy which was felt by all, high and low alike, dwelling within many miles of Wilton. By all dependent on him, or in any way under his orders, he was adored, and well deserved to be so. The older servants were virtually members of his family, and he took much pains in seeing to their interests, and helping their children to start well in the world.” “Never,” says Lady Herbert, “did he come down to Wilton, if only for a few days, without going to see Sally Parham, an old housemaid, who had been sixty years in the family, and Larkum, an old carpenter of whom he was very fond, and who on his death-bed gave him the most beautiful and emphatic blessing I ever heard.” Of his splendid work in the War Office, and for our soldiers long after he had laid aside War Office cares, we shall read in its due place. Meanwhile we think of him for the present as Florence Nightingale’s friend, and her neighbour when in the south, for his beautiful Wilton home was quite near to her own home at Embley. Before the Crimean War began he was already giving his mind to army reform, and while that war was in progress the horrors of insanitary carelessness, as he saw them through Florence Nightingale’s letters, made of him England’s greatest sanitary reformer in army matters, with the single exception of Florence Nightingale herself. The two had from the first many tastes in common, and among those of minor importance was their great affection for animals. He was as devoted to his horse Andover as she had been to the little owl Athene, of which her sister, Lady Verney, in an old MS. quoted by Sir Stuart Grant Duff, gives the following pretty history:—