thankful enough," wrote Florence herself to her cousin in Paris, "that I came. I was able to make her be moved and changed, and to do other little things which perhaps smoothed the awful passage, and which perhaps would not have been done as well without me." A family event of a different kind interested Miss Nightingale at this time. Her cousin Blanche Shore Smith had become engaged to Arthur Hugh Clough. Miss Nightingale greatly liked him. As a long engagement seemed likely, Miss Nightingale interested herself in the future of the young couple; discussing the proper limits of parental allowances in such matters; drawing up elaborately detailed estimates of household expenditure, not forgetting to include future charges for a young family, as by the statistics of the average birth-rate they might be calculated. Statistics were already almost a passion with her. II Negotiations were now on foot for Miss Nightingale to take charge of a benevolent institution in London, and Madame Mohl advised her to keep in their places the great ladies who were concerned in it. Neither now, nor at any time, was she much in love with committees, but not every word in the following account of the negotiations need be taken very seriously:-- (_To Madame Mohl._) LEA HURST, _April_ 8. In all that you say I cordially agree, and if you knew what the "fashionable asses" have been doing, their "offs" and their "ons," poor fools! you would say so ten times more. I shall be truly grateful if you will write to Pop--my people know as much of the affair now as I do--which is not much. You see the F.A.S. (or A.F.S., which will stand for "ancient fathers" and be more respectful, as they are all Puseyites), the F.A.S. want me to come up to London now and look at them, and if we suit to come very soon into the Sanatorium, which, I am afraid, will preclude my coming back to Paris, especially if you are coming away soon, for going there without you would unveil all my iniquities, as the F.A.S. are quite as much afraid of the R.C.'s as my people are. It is no use telling you the history of the negotiations, which are enough to make a comedy in 50 acts. They may be summed up as I once heard an Irish shoeless boy translate Virgil: _Obstupui_, "I was althegither bothered"--_steteruntque comae_, "and my hair stood up like the bristles of a pig"--_vox faucibus haesit_, "and divil a word could I say." Well, divil a bit of a word can I say except that you are very good, dear friend, to take so much interest, and that I shall be truly glad if you will write to Pop, ... _dans le sens du muscle_.