1858-1859 Home again--Back in India--Allahabad and Cawnpore -- The Viceroy's camp--State entry into Lucknow -- The Talukdars of Oudh--Loyalty of the Talukdars -- Cawnpore and Fatehgarh--The Agra Durbar I travelled home _via_ Corfu, Trieste, Venice, and Switzerland, arriving in England towards the end of June.

The intense delight of getting 'home' after one's first term of exile can hardly be exaggerated, and certainly cannot be realized, save by those who have gone through the exile, and been separated, as I had been for years, from all that made the happiness of my early life.

Every English tree and flower one comes across on first landing is a distinct and lively pleasure, while the greenness and freshness are a delicious rest to the eye, wearied with the deadly whitey-brown sameness of dried-up sandy plains, or the all-too gorgeous colouring of eastern cities and pageants.
My people were living in Ireland, in the county of Waterford, so after only a short sojourn in London, for the very necessary re-equipment of the outer man, I hastened over there.

I found my father well and strong for a man of seventy-four, and to all appearance quite recovered from the effects of his fifty years of Indian service, and, to my great joy, my mother was looking almost as young, and quite as beautiful, as I had left her six years before.

My little sister, too, always an invalid, was very much as when I had parted from her--full of loving-kindness for everyone, and, though unable to move without help, perfectly happy in the many resources she had within herself, and the good she was able to do in devoting those resources to the benefit of others.
There, too, I found my fate, in the shape of Nora Bews, a young lady living with a married sister not far from my father's place, who a few months later consented to accompany me on my return to India.