Since it was determined that he should continue to be minister to Spain, Lowell proposed to use his yearly furlough by a hurried visit home in the summer of 1879, leaving Mrs. Lowell at Tours. “I wish Fanny could spend the summer with you in Maiche,” he writes to Mr. John W. Field who, with his wife, had been their companions for a while in Spain; “but we both think the other plan wiser, though not so agreeable. She will learn more French in Tours, and I think we can find a good family for her to go into through the French _pasteur_ or the British chaplain, for there are both in the town. I hope to be in Paris by the 25th, and to find you still here. Delay for a day or two, I beseech you, for my sake. I can’t stay long, for I have to give a week to my friends in England on my way through. I can hardly contain myself at the thought of going home. It excites me more than I could have conceived--at my time of life! Were I as young as you it wouldn’t be surprising.” This was written 15 June, 1879. On the 20th he wrote a line to the same friend to say that they could not start that day, as they had intended, and he could not say when they should, since Mrs. Lowell was not well enough to travel. “Nothing serious,” he adds, but as the days passed his tone changed. Serious indeed her illness proved to be. On the 9th of July he wrote: “Twice yesterday the doctors thought all was over. No motion of the heart could be detected--the hands and feet and nose became cold--and the dear face had all the look of death--the eyes altogether leaden and fixed. She had been without speech for twelve hours. What speech she had had for several days had been mere delirium. Suddenly at about six in the afternoon she revived as by a miracle, said she wished to be changed to another bed, was willing to take stimulants in order to strengthen her for it, and insisted that she could move herself from one bed to the other. This, of course, was out of the question. After being changed she was perfectly tranquil, though excessively weak. During the operation she spoke French to the Sœur who is nursing her, English to me, and Spanish to her maid, all coherently. Both doctors declared they had never seen such a case, or heard of it, and that according to all experience she ought to have died ten times over and days before. I have had two, one to relay the other, so that one could be at her bedside all the time. One has slept in the house--when he _could_ sleep. The question now is of building up strength. It has been typhus of the most malignant kind. That has run its course. All danger is not yet over, but hope has good grounds. The chances are now in her favor, especially as she wishes to live. I will tell you more hereafter. God be praised!”