d in from every side. Scores of people visited the
lighthouse. Grace was feted and admired, and a public subscription in
her benefit resulted in a gift of seven hundred pounds, or about
thirty-five hundred dollars of our money. She also received four
medals, and a large sum of money in private gifts.

Grace and her family took their new prominence with great good sense
and modesty, and disliked the publicity which came to them. They were
astonished at the commotion their exploit had caused, for to them it
appeared little more than a part of the day's work that duty required
them to perform.

But Grace did not live long after her exploit. Her confined life at the
lighthouse and the exposure she underwent there resulted in the disease
of consumption from which she rapidly wasted away. In spite of the best
medical aid she steadily drooped, and two years after she had done her
brave deed she died in the town of Bamborough where she had been born.

Again a subscription was collected and a monument was erected in her
honor. Her father and mother lived to a ripe old age, reaping benefits
from the money that Grace had left them. Perhaps some of their
descendants are still tending the light at the present day, but at all
events the name of the Darlings has been made immortal by the bravery
of this girl.

CHAPTER XXV

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

The Red Cross Nurse has become a heroic figure in the world to-day and
has saved lives by hundreds of thousands in every quarter of the globe;
she has labored under fire on the battlefield and in the reek of
pestilence in the rear; her form is as familiar in war as that of the
soldier, and her name betokens every charity and kindness--but of all
the heroic women who ever bore their healing art into the dark places
and black hours of history, no name stands out with the luster of
Florence Nightingale.

She was born in 1822 in the city of Florence in Italy, and was named
after the place where she first drew breath. Her father was William
Nightingale, an English gentleman, and her elder sister, Parthenope,
also took her name from the place where she was born, for Parthenope is
the ancient term for Naples.

The Nightingale family did not remain long in Italy, and soon after the
birth of his youngest child William Nightingale, with his wife and two
little daughters, returned to England where the two girls spent their
childhood in a rambling old house in Derbyshire with many traditi