ons
and stories attached to it. Here Florence conceived a love for nursing
and used to tend sick animals in the neighborhood and when she grew
older, to sit up with and cheer the sick among the cottagers. There
were not many people, even among those who were far older than herself,
who could minister to the sick with her kindness and skill, and her
fame soon was general through the neighborhood. Poor men used to come
hat in hand to the old house requesting that Miss Florence spend a few
hours with a sick wife or a young mother, and the Nightingales were
kind enough and sensible enough to allow their daughter to do the work
for which she had so evident an inclination.

There were no trained nurses in those days, and the general business of
nursing as a profession was considered almost disreputable. Sick people
were expected to be cared for by their relatives; hospitals were
inefficient and badly run, and the comforts of the modern sickroom were
unknown. As Florence grew older she thought a great deal about these
things, and finally decided that she would do something which at that
time was regarded almost as strange as if she had declared her
intention of visiting the North Pole--she said she was going to become
a professional trained nurse, and went abroad to study nursing on the
Continent which was far ahead of England in such matters.

In a European hospital that was more in accord with the standards we
know to-day and where comfort, skill and cleanliness went hand in hand,
Florence Nightingale nursed the sick and acquired a mastery of the
profession as it was then understood. It was so unusual for a woman of
refinement to enter such a calling that she had become known in many
places simply because she had decided to become a nurse; and after she
returned to England she was at once offered the position of
Superintendent at a Home for Sick Governesses in London.

This home, like many another benevolent institution in those times, was
badly administered. As it constantly showed a deficit, its friends had
become discouraged in supporting it, and the subscriptions on which it
lived had been falling off. The ladies who were compelled to remain
there did not receive the care that they should have had, and were
unhappy and dispirited. This was the state of affairs when Florence
Nightingale became the Superintendent of the Home.

In a very short time the Home was completely changed. Miss Nightingale
had personally visited