Throughout the period when John Stanhope was experiencing so many and varied adventures abroad, life in the home which he had left flowed on with less of note to mark the flight of time. But at the very date when he had been enduring the miseries of a prolonged detention in France, the former companion of his travels, Tom Knox, had been undergoing a misadventure of a different type, in which the family in Grosvenor Square took a peculiar interest. His first action on arriving in London had been to hasten to see Mrs Stanhope in order to take her the latest news of her son. Dining with her on this occasion he made the acquaintance of Miss Acklom. The young lady exhibited a great interest in the traveller, of whose adventures she had heard repeatedly from her friends, the Stanhopes, and he finding her a sympathetic listener, the mutual attraction rapidly increased, with the result that, at a concert at Lady Jersey's in June, 1811, he proposed to her, and was accepted. The engagement, however, was not a happy one. Mr Acklom demanded far larger settlements than Mr Knox was in a position to agree to; and in December of the same year all idea of the marriage was abandoned. Tom Knox returned to Miss Acklom her picture which she had bestowed upon him, and she sent back to him the portrait and presents which he had given her; while neither of them appear to have regretted regaining their freedom. Full particulars of this episode in his friend's life were dispatched to John Stanhope at Verdun; indeed, no sooner had Mrs Stanhope at last ascertained the fate of her absent son than she and her family strove diligently to lighten his exile by any available relays of news from his native land. And in strange contrast to the adventures of the young _détenu_ must have seemed those letters which reached him, descriptive of that far-away family life in England, and conjuring up pictures of the home and the faces which he might never see again. _Mrs Spencer Stanhope to John Spencer Stanhope._ 1812. Your sisters are all well. They are, as usual, very busy acquiring knowledge. They are learning Spanish, Italian, French & German, also the harp and the flute. At this moment Marianne is studying Euclid, Anne & Frances are at the Pianoforte, Isabella is drawing & Maria is occupied with her French. Hugh grows very stout & bold; Isabella, I never saw better, Frances is a prodigiously tall girl & very clever. Maria is always the same good- natured little Fairy. From Cannon Hall Marianne wrote later:--