On the twenty-eighth of February, 1866, Lepsius started on his second journey to Egypt, the details of which are given on page 201. He was alone except for the faithful draughtsman Weidenbach. While he was on the way, Uncle Abeken became engaged to, and subsequently married, Fraulein Helene von Olfers, a daughter of the Director of the museum. The fear lest the old friend of the house should change proved unfounded, for as a married man he still preserved his old friendship for the Lepsiuses. The master of the house returned home sooner than he had been expected. He had given up the journey to upper Egypt for several reasons, chief among which was the great inundation of the Nile. He was met at Berlin by the clang of arms. A civil war appeared inevitable, and Bismarck was as little of a favorite in Bendler street as in other constitutional circles of the country, though the sagacity of Lepsius and the information derived from Abeken, who always regarded his chief with fervent admiration, had caused the Lepsiuses to repose great confidence in him. At court, too, he had many more bitter opponents and enemies than friends, and when, shortly before the war, Bismarck injured his foot, a gentleman who held a situation near the Queen uttered the pointed _bon-mots_, “His foot hurts him because he has gone too far,” and “The cloven hoof is showing.” But never did the feeling of a nation towards a great man undergo such a sudden, universal and complete revolution as that towards Bismarck during the short months of the war of 1866. At that time Frau Lepsius, with the ardent enthusiasm peculiar to herself and with the assistance of her daughters, made herself most useful in the Hospital Association and still more in the Elizabeth Hospital. The diary records the preliminaries of peace with anxious interest, and contains the following anecdote, perhaps from the mouth of Abeken: “At the negotiations for peace Benedetti began to speak cautiously of slight enlargements of the French boundaries, as Prussia was now so well rounded out. Then Bismarck cried: ‘Give me that in writing! To-morrow I must present a demand for a credit of sixty millions for war expenses to the Chamber; with this paper in my hand I can ask for double the sum.’”