home, as the doctors wished her to do, and, weak though she was,
returned to Scutari, where soon afterwards she heard of her friend lord
Raglan's death, which was a great shock to her. It was some time before
she was strong enough to go back to her work, and she spent many hours
wandering about the cypress-planted cemetery at Scutari, where so many
English soldiers lay buried, and in planning a memorial to them which
was afterwards set up.

* * * * *

In September Sebastopol fell and the war was over, but the sick and
wounded were still uncured. It was hard for them to hear of their
comrades going home proud and happy in the honours they had won, while
_they_ were left behind in pain and weariness, but it would have been
infinitely harder without the knowledge that Miss Nightingale would bear
them company to the end. After all they stood on English ground before
she did, as when she was well enough she sailed a second time for the
Crimea to finish the work which her illness had caused her to leave
undone.

All through the winter of 1855 she stayed there, driving over the
snow-covered mountains in a little carriage made for the purpose, which
had been given her as a present. Sick soldiers there were in plenty in
the hospitals, and for some time there was an army also, to keep order
until the peace was signed. In order to give the soldiers occupation and
amusement, she begged her friends at home to send out books and
magazines to them, and this the queen and her mother, the duchess of
Kent, were the first to do. Nothing was too small for the Lady-in-Chief
to think of; she arranged some lectures, got up classes for the children
and for anyone who wanted to learn; started a _cafe_, in hopes to save
the men from drinking; and kept a money-order office herself, so that
the men could, if they wished, send part of their pay home to their
families. And when in July 1856 the British army set sail for England,
Miss Nightingale stayed behind to see a white marble cross twenty feet
high set up on a peak above Balaclava. It was a memorial from her to the
thousands who had died at the mountain's foot, in battle or in the
trenches.

* * * * *

Honours and gifts showered on Miss Nightingale on all sides, and
everybody was eager to show how highly they valued her self-sacrificing
labours. If money had been wanted, it would have poured in from all
quarters; but when the