Casimir and wife are in England; Lucien off at some baths for rheumatics. But Lucien’s wife was at De Candolle’s, and is a pleasant lady. On Sunday De Candolle sent in his coupé, and took Mrs. Gray and me to dinner en famille at Vallon,--only Madame Lucien and some grandchildren. Vallon is a very pretty place and the house charming. Madame De Candolle is lively, even sprightly in her own house, and, I may as well tell you, is greatly in love with Lady Hooker. We were sent home in the coupé in great style; as also we were on Friday evening last, when De Candolle gave us, for parting, a small dinner party,--Professors Wartmann and Saussure, and the banker Lombard,--Plantamour, the astronomer, being detained by the stars; his wife came, however. All these Genevese speak English well, except Madame De Candolle, who gets off a little, and what with this and their pleasant ways, we were quite at home with them. Boissier had written to us to come down to Valeyres, but he had expected us earlier. As he was to be off in less than a week, and Mrs. Gray well used up, on reaching Geneva, we declined, and begged him to come to Geneva, which he did on Monday, and stayed well into Tuesday. He took me to his herbarium, which is large and well kept, and I looked up some old things of Lagasca’s, which I could find no trace of at Madrid. Barbey I regretted not to see. He goes with his father-in-law to the Balearic Isles,--goes, indeed, because he is concerned for Boissier’s health, and well he may be. Argovian Müller I saw something of; busy and happy in the care of the garden, the Delessert herbarium, and the professorship in the new university, built up with the late Duke of Brunswick’s money. The death of his only son was a great blow to him; but he seems cheerful and is very busy. De Candolle is working over Cultivated Plants and their origin.... I see I must go home this autumn, and, indeed, that seems best on almost all accounts. So I should be at Kew soon, and once there I must set myself to work most diligently, and make the most of what time remains. I hear nothing as yet of Bentham. I hope he is going on well, and the Gramineæ nearly finished, and that he will next take up Liliaceæ.... AIX LA CHAPELLE, June 8, 1881.