approval and also the promise of twelve
Nightingale nurses from St. Thomas's for her staff, she accepted it.
Still there was a delay of some months, which was partly due to the
nurses' need of further training, and partly to the imperative necessity
that she should have entire rest in order to recruit the strength which
had been so sorely overtaxed at the Great Northern Hospital. She did not
therefore enter on her duties until March 31, 1865. Even then she began
her new and untried work in much trembling and with great distrust of
herself, though her trust in her Saviour never failed. "It often seems
strange," she wrote, "that I, who have so little self-reliance, and
would like every step directed, am obliged to take such an independent
position; and yet I have been so led that I could not help it, and I
only trust I may be more and more led to look to the guidance of the
ever-present and all-wise Heavenly Friend."

After her arrival she was still obliged to wait some weeks for the
advent of her staff, consisting of twelve Nightingale nurses and four
probationers. But although she was not yet in possession of the reins of
government, and so was debarred from doing anything in the way of
nursing, she was yet allowed free access to the wards, being only
prohibited to speak on religion to the Roman Catholic patients. So the
intervening time was not lost, for she found many opportunities of
bringing cheer and comfort to sad and weary hearts and of pointing lost
ones to the sinner's Saviour. Agnes Jones was not one of those who
are always

"Seeking for some great thing to do,"

and ignoring the many small opportunities of service which lie ready to
hand. She was quite content, since the larger field was not yet open to
her, to occupy a smaller one. In a letter to her aunt she wrote very
characteristically:--"I am trying and succeeding more and more in fixing
my eyes on all the little things we shall be able to do. I believe in
this is our safety, doing the daily _littles_ as opportunity is given,
and leaving the issue with God. It is the _individual_ influence we
shall have, the individual relief and the individual help for mind and
body, that will be ours. If it is His will, He can make others see the
many littles as one great whole, or they may see nothing done, while we
have the comfort of the littles we know have been done."

The nurses and probationers arrived in the middle of May, and then work
began in good