“DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE,--You are I know, well aware of the high sense I entertain of the Christian devotion which you have displayed during this great and bloody war, and I need hardly repeat to you how warm my admiration is for your services, which are fully equal to those of my dear and brave soldiers, whose sufferings you have had the _privilege_ of alleviating in so merciful a manner. I am, however, anxious of marking my feelings in a manner which I trust will be agreeable to you, and therefore send you with this letter a brooch, the form and emblems of which commemorate your great and blessed work, and which I hope you will wear as a mark of the high approbation of your Sovereign! “It will be a very great satisfaction to me when you return at last to these shores, to make the acquaintance of one who has set so bright an example to our sex. And with every prayer for the preservation of your valuable health, believe me, always, yours sincerely, “VICTORIA R.” The Government did not forget to officially acknowledge the work of the Lady-in-Chief, and when the Treaty of Peace was under consideration in the spring of 1856, Lord Ellesmere paid the following eloquent tribute to her services:-- “My Lords, the agony of that time has become a matter of history. The vegetation of two successive springs has obscured the vestiges of Balaclava and of Inkerman. Strong voices now answer to the roll-call, and sturdy forms now cluster round the colours. The ranks are full, 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 pillow 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.” Lord Ellesmere had correctly guessed Miss Nightingale’s desire to escape a public demonstration. She declined the Government’s offer of a British man-of-war to convey her home, and, embarking at Scutari on a French vessel, sailed for Marseilles. She passed through France at night, halted in Paris to visit her old friends, the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and then, accompanied by her aunt, Mrs. Smith, and travelling incognito as “Miss Smith,” proceeded to Boulogne and sailed for dear old England. What a life-time of memories had been crowded into those twenty-one months which had elapsed since she had left on her great mission! CHAPTER XX _THE RETURN OF THE HEROINE_