Miss Nightingale’s time was now passed between her London house, 10, South Street, Park Lane, and Claydon, the beautiful home near Winslow, Buckinghamshire, of her sister, who had in 1859 become the second wife of Sir Harry Verney. Sir Harry was the son of Sir Harry Calvert, Governor of Chelsea Hospital and Adjutant-General of the Forces. He had been a Major in the army, and in 1827 assumed the name of Verney. The family of Verney had been settled in Buckinghamshire since the fifteenth century. Sir Harry was at various times member of Parliament for Bedford and also Buckingham. He was deeply interested in all matters of army reform and in active sympathy with the schemes of his distinguished sister-in-law, and acted as Chairman of the Nightingale Fund. At Claydon Miss Nightingale found a beautiful and congenial holiday retreat with Sir Harry Verney and her beloved sister, who was well known in literary and political circles; her books on social questions had the distinction of being quoted in the House of Commons. In the second year of her marriage (1861) Lady Verney had laid the foundation stone of the new Buckinghamshire Infirmary at Aylesbury, the construction of which Miss Nightingale watched with great interest during her visits to Claydon. Her bust adorns the entrance hall of the infirmary. During her summer visits to Claydon, Miss Nightingale frequently gave garden parties for the Sisters from St. Thomas’s Hospital. Lady Verney died, after a long and painful illness, in 1890, sadly enough on May 12th, her sister’s birthday. Sir Harry Verney survived his wife barely four years, and at his death Claydon passed to Sir Edmund Hope Verney, the son of his first marriage with the daughter of Admiral Sir George Johnstone Hope. Sir Edmund was a gallant sailor, who as a young lieutenant had served in the Crimean War and received a Crimean medal, Sebastopol clasp. He had again distinguished himself in the Indian Mutiny, was mentioned in dispatches, and received an Indian medal, Lucknow clasp. He was Liberal M.P. for North Bucks 1885–6 and 1889–91, and represented Brixton on the first London County Council. Sir Edmund married the eldest daughter of Sir John Hay-Williams and Lady Sarah, daughter of the first Earl Amherst, a lady who has taken an active part in the movement for higher education in Wales, and served for seven years on a Welsh School Board. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Welsh University. Sir Edmund has estates in Anglesey. Lady Verney is a member of the County Education Committee for Buckinghamshire. She is continuing her mother-in-law’s work of editing the “Verney Memoirs.” Sir Edmund takes great interest in education and rural questions. He is a member of the Bucks County Council and the Dairy Farmers’ Association, and has published articles on Agricultural Education and kindred subjects.