xxiv] HOME LIFE 41 I 



know, I am willing to tell all that I know or remember. I 

 was dreadfully hurt. I wrote, I am afraid, too strongly, and 

 perhaps bitterly, trying to explain my real feelings towards 

 her, and assuring her that I had never had a moment's 

 thought of any one but her, and hoping that this explanation 

 would suffice. But I received no reply, and from that day 

 I never saw, or heard of, any of the family. 



While these events were in progress, my dear friend, Dr. 

 Richard Spruce, came home from Peru in very weak health, 

 and, after staying a short time in London, went to live at 

 Hurstpierpoint, in Sussex, in order to be near Mr. William 

 Mitten, then the greatest English authority on mosses, and 

 who had undertaken to describe his great collections from 

 South America. This was in the autumn of 1864, and in the 

 spring of 1865 I took a small house for myself and my 

 mother, in St. Mark's Crescent, Regent's Park, quite near the 

 Zoological Gardens, and within a pleasant walk across the 

 park of the society's library in Hanover Square, where I had 

 to go very often to consult books of reference. Here I lived 

 five years, having Dr. W. B. Carpenter for a near neighbour, 

 and it was while living in this house that I saw most of my 

 few scientific friends. 



During the summer and autumn I often went to Hurst- 

 pierpoint to enjoy the society of my friend, and thus became 

 intimate with Mr. Mitten and his family. Mr. Mitten was 

 an enthusiastic botanist and gardener, and knew every wild 

 plant in the very rich district which surrounds the village, 

 and all his family were lovers of wild flowers. I remember 

 my delight, on the occasion of my first or second visit there, 

 at seeing a vase full of the delicate and fantastic flowers of 

 the large butterfly-orchis and the curious fly-orchis, neither 

 of which I had ever seen before, and which I was surprised 

 to hear were abundant in the woods at the foot of the downs. 

 It was an immense delight to me to be taken to these woods, 

 and to some fields on the downs where the bee-orchis and 

 half a dozen other species grew abundantly, with giant cow- 

 slips nearly two feet high, the dyers' broom, and many other 



