"You live," said Lord Napier and Ettrick, in calling upon Miss Nightingale one day, "between a Palace and a Park, and have one of the best views in London." A pilgrim who makes his way to No. 10 South Street and looks up to the tall, unpretentious house, now marked by a tablet recording the residence of Florence Nightingale in it, will not see the Palace, and may wonder how she can have had any view at all. The principal rooms, however, are at the back of the house, and on the upper floors command a view of the Park, across the grounds of Dorchester House--the finest of London's Italian "palaces." Miss Nightingale was fond of the view, especially in spring mornings, but in the afternoons she moralized her landscape. In a letter to her father from South Street she quoted _Samson Agonistes_: "_Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves._ Since I have lived looking on the Park, and seen those people making their trivial round, or rather their treadmill round, blind slaves to it, I have scarce ever had that line out of my head. It will be a material alleviation to me if I have to spend September in London that the 'mill' is gone. Also, tho' my whole life is laid out to secure it against interruptions, no one could believe how much it is interrupted. And September diminishes this. The _beggars_ are out of town." How strict was Miss Nightingale's rule against interruption, even from her best friends, is shown amusingly in some notes of this date from Lady Ashburton and her daughter. "I wish," wrote Lady Ashburton, "that you would let me sit like a poor old rat in the corner, while you are at dinner; it is much wholesomer not to eat in solitude; but I know I shan't get in, so I can only leave this at the door." "Mother bids me add a P.S. to my letter and ask with her dear love if you could see her any time to-day; she will talk through the keyhole and not detain you five minutes."