Before she left the Crimea, Miss Nightingale set up, at her own cost, a white marble cross twenty feet high as a monument to the dead. It was dedicated to the memory of the soldiers who had perished and to the nurses who had died in tending them, and on it was written in English and Russian, “Lord, have mercy upon us.” From all sides she received tributes for her services. The Sultan gave her a diamond bracelet; Queen Victoria sent her a beautiful jewel specially designed by Prince Albert. Speaking in the House of Lords, Lord Ellesmere said: “The hospitals are empty. The angel of mercy still lingers to the last on the scene of her labours; but her mission is all but accomplished. Those long arcades of Scutari, in which dying men sat up to catch the sound of her footstep or the flutter of her dress, and fell back on the pillows content to have seen her shadow as it passed, are now comparatively deserted. She may be thinking how to escape, as best she may, on her return, the demonstration of a nation’s appreciation of the deeds and motives of Florence Nightingale.” This was just what Miss Nightingale wished to do. The government offered to bring her home in a man-of-war, but she travelled quietly back under the name of Miss Smith, so that her uncommon name might not attract attention to her. When she got to her own home, she went in by the back door. Crowds of people used to gather round the park in the following weeks in the hope of seeing her, but she refused to receive any sort of public welcome.