Miss Heathorn and her parents reached England at the beginning of May 1855, and took up their abode at 8 Titchfield Terrace, not far from Huxley's own lodgings and his brothers' house. One thing, however, filled Huxley with dismay. Miss Heathorn's health had broken down utterly, and she looked at death's door. All through the preceding year she had been very ill; she had gone with friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wise, to the newly opened mining-camp at Bathurst, and she and Mrs. Wise were indeed the first women to visit it; returning to Sydney after rather a rough time, she caught a chill, and being wrongly treated by a doctor of the blood-letting, calomel-dosing school, she was reduced to a shadow, and only saved by another practitioner, who reversed the treatment just in time. In his letters to her, Huxley had not at first realised the danger she had been in; and afterwards tried to keep her spirits up by a cheerful optimism that would only look forward to their joyful union and many years of unbroken happiness to atone for their long parting. But the reality alarmed him. He took her to one of the most famous doctors of the day, as if merely a patient he was interested in. Then as one member of the profession to another, he asked him privately his opinion of the case. "I give her six months of life," said Aesculapius.] "Well, six months or not," [replied Huxley,] "she is going to be my wife." [The doctor was mightily put out. "You ought to have told me that before." Of course, the evasive answer in such a contingency was precisely what Huxley wished to avoid. Happily another leading doctor held a much more favourable opinion, and said that with care her strength would come back, slowly but surely.] 14 Waverley Place, Wednesday. My dear Hooker, My wife and I met again on Sunday last, and I have established herself, her father and mother, close by me here at 8 Titchfield Terrace, Regent's Park, and whenever you and Mrs. Hooker are in this part of the world, and can find time to call there, you will find her anything but surprised to see you. God help me! I discover that I am as bad as any young fool who knows no better, and if the necessity for giving six lectures a week did not sternly interfere, I should be hanging about her ladyship's apron-strings all day. She is in very bad health, poor child, and I have some reason to be anxious, but I have every hope she will mend with care. Oh this life! "atra cura," as old Thackeray has it, sits on all our backs and mingles with all our happiness. But if I go on talking in this way you will wonder what has come over my philosophership. Ever yours, T.H. Huxley.