“I was dictating this morning ‘du déplorable sort des choses humaines, qui veut qu’au succès social soient toujours mêlées des disgrâces, et que nos joies soient toujours accompagnées de tristesses.’ “My dear boy Sep has a living offered him by the bishop—at last! The great desire of my heart (outside the work—well, no!—inside everything) has been to see him out of the workhouse! Well, he is to go to Wapping.... How true it is that nothing is simple and single....” In 1881 she writes to the Rev. Septimus Buss on his transference to the Vicarage of Shoreditch— “I am so thankful to know of your promotion. You both deserve it, for you are model parish chiefs. Shoreditch must be very poor, judging from the little one sees in passing through it—only I suppose it is not damp. Dear little mother, I hope you will like the place. Anyhow, it is better than Wapping.” Of another dual friendship we have a charming glimpse in a note to Dr. J. G. Fitch, in response to the gift of his first book— “Since seeing you, I have looked at the dedication, and am much touched by it. “It is a great privilege and happiness to know such a home as yours. “Lately, I have been talking to my young people about women’s duties, and I quoted Mills’ dedication to ‘Liberty,’ De Toqueville’s tribute to his wife, and others. Yours is but another example of the wife’s ‘work and counsel’ which enables a man to do and ‘write things useful.’ “I thank you most warmly for the book itself, for the kind words with which it was accompanied, and I also thank you for the dedication, because, through the ‘dearest wife,’ it is a tribute to all women.” Also in the home of Dr. and Mrs. Hodgson, she found full scope for the strong element of romance which never died out of her nature. Some part of her holiday was always spent with them, and she expanded to the full in these congenial surroundings. They lived for a time in London; then at Bournemouth, where Mrs. Hodgson went to be near her father, Sir Joshua Walmsley; and finally at Bonaly, when Dr. Hodgson filled the Chair of Economic Science in Edinburgh, each home being more charming than the last. She first writes of these visits to me in 1872— “My Bournemouth visit has been most pleasant, as indeed my visits to Mrs. Hodgson always are. She is one of the most lovable, loving, and unselfish women I know, and her home-life is a constant lesson. She is one of those whom I dearly love, and who are necessary to me. Yet, seven years ago, I did not know her. Her father’s illness and death have tried her much lately, and Dr. Hodgson’s absence in Edinburgh throws much responsibility on her.”