Mrs. Nathan, wife of the Italian banker of Cornhill, was an intrepid lady, true to the freedom of her country, who had assisted Garibaldi and Mazzini in many a perilous enterprise. After the interview at her house, she had occasion to consult Garibaldi on matters of moment. Misled or deterred by aspersion, which every lady had to suffer, suspected of patriotic complicity, Mrs. Nathan was not invited to Brooke House. Under these circumstances she could not go alone to see the General, and she asked me to take her. Offering her my arm, we walked through the courtyard and along the corridors of the house to Garibaldi's rooms. Going and returning from her interview, I was much struck by the queenly grace and self-possession of Mrs. Nathan's manner. There was neither disquietude nor consciousness in her demeanour of the disrespect of not being invited to Brooke House, though her residence was known.
On the night of Garibaldi's arrival at Brooke House, Mr. Seely, the honoured host of the General, invited me to join the dinner party, where I heard things said on some matters, which the speakers could not possibly know to be true. Garibaldi showed no traces of excitement, which had dazed so many at Southampton that afternoon. The vessel which brought him there was immediately boarded by a tumultuous crowd of visitors. All the reporters of the London and provincial press were waiting for the vessel to be sighted, and they were foremost in the throng on the ship. Before them all was Mrs. Colonel Chambers, with her beseeching eyes, large, luminous and expressive, and difficult to resist. Garibaldi gave instant audience to Joseph Cowen, whose voice alone, or chiefly, influenced him. Years before, when Garibaldi was unknown, friendless, and penniless, he turned his bark up the Tyne to visit Mr. Cowen, the only Englishman from whom he would ask help. Garibaldi's first day at Southampton was more boisterous than a battle. Everybody wanted him to go everywhere. Houses where his name had never been heard were now open to him. Mr. Seely was known to be his friend. The Isle of Wight was near. Brooke House lay out of the way of the "madding crowd," and there his friends would have time to arrange things for him. The end of his visit to England was sudden, unforeseen, inexplicable both to friend and foe, at the time and for long after.