"I have said something,--I can hardly say enough, of the kindness we have received here. London seems already a home to us, and one surrounded by dear friends. Morpeth and his family, Rogers, Basil Montagu, and Sir R. H. Inglis have been our best friends. Sydney Smith also has been kind to us; he calls Howe 'Prometheus,' and says that he gave a soul to an inanimate body. For four mornings, we have not once breakfasted at home. Milnes gave us one very nice breakfast; among the guests was Charles Buller, celebrated here for his wit and various endowments. The two handsomest women I have seen are Mrs. Norton and the Duchess of Sutherland--the former of these rather a haughty beauty, with flashing eye and swelling lip, and dress too low for our notions of propriety--this is common enough here...." The Doctor was lame (the result of an accident on shipboard), and the Reverend Sydney Smith, one of their earliest visitors, insisted on lending him his own crutches. The Doctor demurred; he was tall, while Canon Smith was short and stout. The crutches were sent, nevertheless. They could not be used, and were returned with thanks; not so soon, however, but that the kind and witty Canon made of the incident a peg on which to hang a jest. He had lost money by American investments; in a letter published in a London paper, after reflecting severely upon the failure of some of the Western States to pay their debts, he added: "And now an American doctor has deprived me of my last means of support!" Sydney Smith proved genuinely kind and solicitous. He writes to the Doctor:-- "You know as well as I do, or better, that nature charges one hundred per cent for a bad leg used before the proper time, and that if you use it a day sooner than you ought, it may molest you for a month longer than you expect. This being; [_sic_] if your ladies will trust themselves to me any day, I shall have great pleasure in escorting them in their sight-seeing, and will call upon them with my carriage, if that be possible." He did take them about a great deal; they dined with him, and passed more than one delightful evening at his house. Another of their early visitors was Charles Dickens. Not only did he invite them to dine, but he took them to all manner of places unfamiliar to the ordinary tourist: to prisons, workhouses, and asylums, more interesting to the Chevalier than theatre or picture-gallery. There were even expeditions to darker places, when Julia and Annie must stay at home. Dr. Howe's affair was with all sorts and conditions of men, and the creator of Joe and Oliver Twist, the child of the Marshalsea, could show him things that no one else could. The following note, in Dickens's unmistakable handwriting, shows how these expeditions were managed, and how he enjoyed them:--