Our visit was a very disappointing one. The widowed daughter of our host had lost heavily by the failure of certain American securities. These losses formed the sole topic of conversation not only between Wordsworth and Dr. Howe, but also between the ladies of the family, my sister, and myself. The tea to which we had been bidden was simply a cup of tea, served without a table. We bore the harassing conversation as long as we could. The only remark of Wordsworth's which I brought away was this: "The misfortune of Ireland is that it was only a partially conquered country." When we took leave, the poet expressed his willingness to serve us during our stay in his neighborhood. We left it, however, on the following morning, without seeing him or his again. A little akin to this experience was that of a visit to the Bank of England, made at the invitation of one of its officers whom I had known and entertained in America. Another of the functionaries of the bank volunteered his services as a cicerone. He showed us among other things the treasure recently received from the Chinese government, in payment of a war indemnity. It was all in little blocks, parallelograms and horseshoes of gold and silver. An ingenious little machine was also shown us for the detection of light weight sovereigns. We paid for his attention by listening to many uncivil pleasantries regarding the financial condition of our own country. I still remember the insolent sneer with which this gentleman said, "By the bye, have you sold the Bank of the United States yet?" He was presumably ignorant of the real history of the bank, which had long ceased to be a government institution, President Jackson having annulled its charter and removed the government deposits. I mention these incidents because they were the only exceptions to the uniform kindness with which we were generally received, and to the homage paid to my husband as one of the most illustrious of modern philanthropists. Berlin would have been the next important stop in our journey but for an impediment which we had hardly anticipated. In the days of the French revolution of 1830, the Poles had made one of their oft-repeated struggles to regain national independence. General Lafayette was much interested in this movement, and at his request Dr. Howe undertook to convey to some of the Polish chiefs funds sent for their aid by parties in the United States. He succeeded in accomplishing this errand, but was arrested on the very night of his arrival in Berlin, and was only released by the intervention of our government, after a tedious imprisonment _au secret_. He was then sent with a military escort to the confines of Prussia with the warning to return no more.