We always talk of you and all that you did for us at Paris. I heard yesterday that Gonfalonieri was coming to London in a month. Is he at Paris now? I have just been reading the account of M. Mignet's _éloge_ of Talleyrand. I hope you were there, for it must have been very interesting, but did not he make rather an extraordinary defence of Talleyrand's political tergiversation, and of his conduct while the Allies were at Paris? extraordinary to our ideas of political integrity. We met "ubiquity" Young and Mr. Babbage yesterday at dinner at the E. Strutts', who told all sorts of droll stories about Lord Brougham, who seems to have fairly lost his wits. He had Lord Duncannon to dine with him the other day, which is new, he having formerly stipulated when he went out to dinner that he should see none of his former colleagues. He sends his carriage to stand before Lord Denman's house for hours while he goes and walks in the Park, or even while he is out of town, to give the idea that they are very intimate.... In another letter to Miss Clarke (Sept. 18), some further gossip is given. Miss Nightingale was on her way back to London from Lea Hurst, and had broken the journey at Nottingham:-- The next day we went up to town by rail in six and a half hours, notwithstanding that the engine was twice out of order and stopped us. We had very agreeable company on the road, a neighbour of ours and equerry to the Queen,[12] who was full of her virtues and condescensions. How much pleasanter it is travelling by these public conveyances than in one's own stupid carriage. He said that Lord Melbourne called the Queen's favourite terrier a frightful little beast, and often contradicted her flat, all which she takes in good part, and lets him go to sleep after dinner, taking care that he shall not be waked.[13] She reads all the newspapers and all the vilifying abuse which the Tories give her, and makes up her mind that a queen must be abused, and hates them cordially. [12] General Sir Frederick Stovin, G.C.B. He was groom-in-waiting to Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1860. [13] Many stories of Lord Melbourne and the "dull dog" are now accessible in the Queen's own diaries, but he made friends with the pets in the end. The Queen may have forbidden others to wake her Minister; but she herself objected sometimes, though with a pretty playfulness, to his snoring. See _The Girlhood of Queen Victoria_, vol. ii. p. 240. II The Nightingales had taken up their residence at Embley in September 1839, and remained there, in accordance with their wont, till the early summer following. The charm of the place is vividly described in a letter from Florence's sister to her cousin, Miss Hilary Bonham Carter:--