Ferdinand von Mueller

30/6/65.

My dear Miss

It is an act of extreme kindness to remember me on my birthday and to cheer me by your pretty present; for this I feel the more touched the less I deserve your attention. I was long desirous to enquire after your health and after your social arrangements, seeing that you evidently have quitted for ever your quiet abode in Phillip Island. Nevertheless I trust that you are surrounded by feeling friends & that you are not without enjoyments of pleasure. Twice when I met you of late you were accompanied by friends, which circumstance rendered it a task of embarrasment to adress you. But I was glad to notice your looking so well.

It is most gratifying to me that you deem me still worthy of your friendship and evince still interest in my fate. So let me not withhold from you the fact, that Prince Alberts Brother transmitted to me this year the beautiful order of the Knighthood of the Ernestinian House

1

On 5 January 1865, M was created a knight of the Order of the Saxe-Ernestine House of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, of which Ernest II, older brother of Queen Victoria's late husband, Prince Albert, was Duke. See R. von Seebach to M, 5 January 1865.

Seeds from Queensland prove always a boon, and so those you sent. Queensland has been aroused by Lady Bowen

2

Diamantina Bowen.

to participate in aiding Leichhardts search and as you will have learnt the party organized here is actually on the way of its mission

3

Ladies' Leichhardt Search Expedition, 1865-6.

Ever with sincerest respect & the friendliest regards