thee.' Oh my beloved people, that spirit shall never lead me to anything unworthy of one who is yours in love."[58] But her mother and her sister, though they loved and admired her, or perhaps from their point of view because they did so, were unable to give any such active sympathy as that for which she craved. Her sister hoped that the visit to Kaiserswerth would be only an episode. It was a good thing, she had written to her mother, for Florence to go there, "as we can get her back sooner to Lea Hurst." To Florence herself she wrote affectionately, but yet with gentle irony. She sent a lively letter describing in detail the birth of a friend's twins: "I tell you, as you are going to be a _sage femme_, I suppose." Mrs. Nightingale, for her part, had acquiesced in the visit to Kaiserswerth, but was already wondering what people would think of her daughter's escapade. "I have not mentioned to any one," wrote Florence (July 16), "where I am, and should also be very sorry that the old ladies should know. With regard, however, to your fear of what people will say, the people whose opinion you most care about, it has been their earnest wish for years that I should come here. The Bunsens (I know he wishes one of his own daughters would come), the Bracebridges, the Sam Smiths, Lady Inglis, the Sidney Herberts, the Plunketts, all wish it; and I know that others--Lady Byron, Caroline Bathurst, Mr. Tremenheere, Mr. Rich (whose opinions however I have not asked)--would think it a very desirable thing for everybody.... With regard to telling people the fact (afterwards) of my having been here, I can see no difficulty. The Herberts, as you know, even commissioned me to do something for them here. The fact itself will pain none of them." Mr. and Mrs. Herbert, who were at Homburg, presently paid her a visit at Kaiserswerth. [58] Much of this appeal was suggested to Florence, in almost identical words (as an extant letter shows), by her Aunt Mai. Mrs. Nightingale and her elder daughter reached Cologne on their way home in October 1851, and there Florence rejoined them. "Our dear child Florence," wrote the mother to Madame Mohl (October 9), "came to us yesterday, and is gone this morning to visit certain Deaconesses and others. I long to be at home and among our people. Daily and hourly I congratulate myself that our home is where it is. Oh what a land of justice and freedom and all good things it is, compared to what we have seen, and how surprising that with all our advantages and our freedom won we should not be so much better than other people. Well, I hope Florence will be able to apply all the fine things she has been learning, to do a little to make us better. Parthe and I are much too idle to help and too apt to be satisfied with things as they are." CHAPTER IX AN INTERLUDE (1852)