156 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xn 



Yet what a trifling world it was, and what women were his 

 fashionable ladies, in comparison with the noble Flo Nightin- 

 gale and her companions ! Have you heard that she 

 astonishes all the surgeons by her skill and presence of mind ? 

 After amputating a limb, they pass on to another, leaving her 

 to take up the artery and do all that is necessary. Miss 

 Stanley is gone out I believe, and the Miss Stewart who so 

 impressed John [Allen] at the hospital he visits, is the 

 Duchess of Somerset's sister, and is going or gone out too, 

 I believe. How good spreads ! and what a school of 

 Christianity and humanity is now carried out at Scutari. 

 We are very busy here in Tenby in sending out clothing 

 and necessaries to the Crimea and Scutari. My stock goes 

 to the latter place, Emma's is for the fighting part. . . 



In the winter of 1855 we took a house in Upper Baker 

 Street for a month. It was the terrible Crimean winter, and 

 there was a bitter frost almost all the time. Neither my 

 father nor my mother were well, and they did not much 

 enjoy their stay. We came home on Feb. 15, before the 

 great snow-fall of that year had melted. The road in the 

 deep cutting between Holwood and Down had been cut 

 out, and the wreaths of the snowdrifts were a wonderful 

 and beautiful sight. The children could walk on the snow, 

 which was level with the top of the iron railings round the 

 lawn. 



In September, 1855, my mother went with my father to 

 the British Association at Glasgow. I remember that she 

 let me (aged 12) trim her a cap for the occasion, and I 

 snipped up lace and ribbon with immense satisfaction. 

 What it was like, Heaven knows ! but I believe it was 

 worn. 



On the 17 February, 1856, "Finished Guy Mannering' 

 was entered in her diary. This means my father finished 

 reading it aloud to us. These evening readings to the 

 children were a happy part of the family life. Whatever 

 my father did with us had a glamour of delight over it unlike 

 anything else. 



