visitor talked of matters which appealed to her, she was instantly curious of detail. "Yes," she would say, leaning forward, "and what about this or that? and have you thought of doing so and so?" Or if some difficulty were propounded, "I wonder if I could help you at all? The person to speak to is Mr. A. or Mr. B. Do you think that he would be so good as to come and see me?" "I am sure he would feel honoured." "Then do you think I might write to him? or you will ask him? Very well, then we will see what can be done." And so a new network of helpful influence would be made. To younger visitors--a London clergyman, it may be, or a student, or a budding official--she would show something of the maternal solicitude that was conspicuous in her intercourse with nursing "daughters." "But you are not looking well to-day. You have been sitting up too late? Yes? Then you must promise me to take better care of yourself." Or, "Are you careful to take regular meals? No? Then you must let an old nurse give you some good advice." The humour which was characteristic of Miss Nightingale came more readily perhaps to her pen than to her tongue; but she always enjoyed a joke in conversation--even, as we have heard already from one of her nursing friends, at her own expense. Sometimes she was teasing. A High Church young lady once went to South Street. She was delighted with her interview, but Miss Nightingale, she said, "laughed at High Church curates a good deal: she said they had no foreheads." She sometimes quizzed even her greatest friends. She used to talk with humorous indignation of Mr. Jowett's God as a "man-jelly," in contrast with the future life of work which _she_ looked forward to. [184] _Julius and Mary Mohl_, p. 342. [185] Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, by his Daughter, prefixed to the 3rd ed. (1903) of his translation of _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, p. 65.