o a sense that responsibility to her caste requires the most
tender humility, may be found in "Una." When about to associate with
coarse hired London nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital, she asks herself,
"Are you more above those with whom you will have to mix than our
Saviour was in every thought and sensitive refinement?" It was by
such self-teaching that these high-spirited girls made their life-toil
redound to their own purification, as it did to the cause of humanity.
The purpose served by binding in one volume the district experiences
of Miss Dutton and the hospital record of Miss Jones is that of
indicating to the average young lady of our period a diversity of ways
in which she may serve our Master and His poor. With "Amy" she may
retain her connection with society, and adorn her home and her circle,
all the while that she reads the Litany with the decayed governess or
_Golden Deeds_ to the dying burglar. With "Agnes" she may plunge into
more heroic self-abnegation. Leaving the fair attractions of the world
as utterly as the diver leaves the foam and surface of the sea, she
may grope for moral pearls in the workhouse of Liverpool or train
for her sombre avocation in the asylum at Kaiserwerth. Such absolute
dedication will probably have some effect on her "tone" as a lady. She
can no longer keep up with the current interests of society. Instead
of Shakespeare and Italian literature, which we have seen coloring
the career of the district visitor, her life will take on a sort of
submarine pallor. The sordid surroundings will press too close for any
gleam from the outer world to penetrate. The things of interest will
be the wretched things of pauperdom and hospital service--the slight
improvement of Gaffer, the spiritual needs of Gammer, the harsh
tyranny of upper nurses. "To-day when out walking," says the brave
young lady, as superintendent of a boys' hospital, "I could only keep
from crying by running races with my boys." The effect of a training
so rigid--training which sometimes includes stove-blacking and
floor-washing--is to try the pure metal, to eject the merely
ornamental young lady whose nature is dross, and to consolidate
the valuable nature that is sterling. Miss Agnes, plunged in hard
practical work, and unconsciously acquiring a little workmen's slang,
gives the final judgment on the utility of such discipline: "Without
a regular hard London training I should have been nowhere." Both the
saints of the cen