CAMBRIDGE, October 23, 1855. Now that I am quietly settled at home again, my episode seems almost like a dream,--a very pleasant one, however, since it gave me the pleasure of seeing once more some most valued and near friends. I was absent only six weeks and one day, of which twenty-two days were passed upon the water. I found all well here on my return, but I was deeply grieved to learn the news of our beloved friend Dr. Torrey’s bereavement. It was about a month ago that the companion of his life, almost from his youth, was removed to a better world, after an illness of only a few days.... She was one of the most actively good, self-denying persons I ever knew. There are many to mourn at her departure out of her own family, especially among the poor and the distressed.... She was one of my earliest and best friends, one to whom I owe more than to almost any person; and I feel the loss as I should that of a near and dear relative. I wrote you a line, with some inclosures, while at sea, and posted it at Halifax, N. S.... When I send the package from Holton,[32] I wish also to send you live seedlings of a palm from Sonora, Mexico, raised from seeds gathered by Thurber, and one or two other things. I do not forget the large “cypress knees” I promised, which will be rather striking in your famous museum, and I look out for an opportunity to send by sailing vessel direct to London. Remember me affectionately to Lady Hooker (for whom Mrs. Gray incloses a few lines) and most cordially to Mr. Bentham, who so kindly came down from the country to give me the opportunity of seeing him, for which I am greatly obliged. P. S.--I forgot to tell you that, by the hands of Hon. Miss Murray (who returns to England by this week’s steamer), I send you the September number of “Silliman’s Journal.” Should she forget to send it to you, please remind her when she comes to Kew, as assuredly she will, to talk about her Florida new fern. I have filled up the Ward case which she brought over, also a box of American plants which she takes, I suppose, for Mr. Fox Strangways. Her various boxes and packages will nearly fill the ship, I should think. Miss Murray is a most lively, most active person, has traveled widely through the country, and traversed rough places, such as no other woman past sixty ever did. She has seen a great deal, but heard very little, I should think, as she talks incessantly, and in a lively, interesting way, too. You will not be disappointed by the suppression of her manuscript by her English friends, I suppose, for she is fully determined to rush into print, to print her journal just as it was written from day to day; for she now feels she has a mission to rescue the South from the obloquy and wrong heaped upon it by us of the North, and by England. Save the mark! At any rate, her journal will be piquant.