flowers, contributed to the charm of the moment, producing some of the intensest pleasurable sensations I have ever enjoyed. I cannot wonder that students throng to Paris, instead of to the immense smoke-hidden London; here there is no excitement, all moves steadily onward, constantly but without enthusiasm. No theory sets the world on fire till it is well established, and the German observers are much more studied than the French. Everything is stamped by good sense and clear substantial thought; my respect is fully commanded, but I often long for a visit to the College of France and a stroll in the Luxembourg. Whilst devoting all my daytime to the rare advantage of practical study so providentially opened to me, the evenings were in another direction equally delightful and beneficial. I was sitting, one dull afternoon, in my bare lodging-house drawing-room, somewhat regretfully thinking of the bright skies of Paris and pleasant study under the trees of the Luxembourg Garden, when the door opened and three young ladies entered, and introduced themselves as Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes and the Misses Leigh Smith. This proved the commencement of a lifelong friendship. These ladies were filled with a noble enthusiasm for the responsible and practical work of women in the various duties of life. They warmly sympathised in my medical effort, and were connected with that delightful society of which Lady Noel Byron, Mrs. Follen, Mrs. Jameson, the Herschels, and Faraday were distinguished members, and with which the Rev. Mr. Morris and the Hon. Russell Gurney were in full sympathy. My young friends hung my dull rooms with their charming paintings, made them gay with flowers, and welcomed me to their family circles with the heartiest hospitality. A bright social sun henceforth cheered the somewhat sombre atmosphere of my hospital life; for when the day’s duties were accomplished there was always some pleasant social gathering, or some concert or lecture attended with friends, to refresh the medical student. I often walked home from my friends in the West between twelve and one at night (being too poor to engage cabs), not exhausted, but invigorated for the next day’s work. Lady Noel Byron became warmly interested in my studies. I went with her to Faraday’s lectures, visited her at Brighton, and she long remained one of my correspondents. One of my most valued acquaintances was Miss Florence Nightingale, then a young lady at home, but chafing against the restrictions that crippled her active energies. Many an hour we spent by my fireside in Thavies Inn, or walking in the beautiful grounds of Embley, discussing the problem of the present and hopes of the future. To her, chiefly, I owed the awakening to the fact that sanitation is the supreme goal of medicine, its foundation and its crown.