Another incident of Miss Nightingale's sojourn in Rome was destined, though she knew it not at the time, to have a far-reaching influence upon her career. Among the English visitors who spent the winter of 1847-48 in Rome were Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert. Mr. Herbert had already been Secretary at War under Peel, a post to which he was afterwards to return under Aberdeen. The resignation of Peel's Cabinet in 1846 released Mr. Herbert from official work. Later in the year he married a lady with whom he had been long acquainted, Elizabeth à Court, daughter of General Charles Ashe à Court; and in the following year he and his wife set out for a long Continental tour. Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge were friends of the Herberts, and thus Florence Nightingale made their acquaintance in Rome. In her retrospect she specially recalled the beginning there of her friendship with Sidney Herbert "under the dear Bracebridges' wing." Compatriots who meet in this way in any foreign resort are apt to see a good deal of each other, and from this winter dates the beginning of a friendship which was to be a governing factor in the life of Florence Nightingale. Sidney Herbert, when they met in galleries or at soirées, or rode together in the Campagna, must have been struck by Miss Nightingale's marked abilities, and for Mrs. Herbert she formed an affectionate attachment. She noted "the great kindness, the desire of love, the magnanimous generosity" of her new friend. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert saw much of Archdeacon Manning (the future cardinal), who was also spending the winter in Rome, and Miss Nightingale was on friendly terms with him.[42] This also was an acquaintance which had some influence on her future career. Sidney Herbert, aided by the ready sympathy of his wife, was devoting much thought, now liberated from official duties, to schemes of benevolence among the poor on his estates. "He felt strongly the disadvantage at which the poor were placed in being compelled after illness, and perhaps after undergoing painful operations, to return in the earliest stage of convalescence, without rest or change, to their accustomed labour."[43] He was full of a scheme for a Convalescent Home and Cottage Hospital (such as is now no rarity, but was then almost unknown), and it can be imagined with what zest Miss Nightingale shared his thoughts. One of the first things which she records in her diary after return from the Continent is "an expedition with Mrs. Sidney Herbert to set up her Convalescent Home at Charmouth"; but this was only a passing incident, and return to the habitual home life, after the distraction of foreign travel, left her no more contented than before. [42] Purcell's _Life of Manning_, vol. i. p. 362. [43] _Sidney Herbert_: _a Memoir_, by Lord Stanmore, vol. i. pp. 97-98. On her return to London in the early summer of 1848 she sent her friends occasionally the talk of the town:--