elicacy
in maternity cases.

These proposals were duly announced: and only if you know Troy can
you conceive with what spirit the town flung itself into the task of
making them effective. "Task," did I say? When I tell you that at
our next drill a parade of thirty-two stretchers followed us up to
the Old Fort (still to the tune of "Come, Cheer Up, My Lads!") you
may guess how far duty and pleasure had made accord.

The project of a hospital went forward more slowly; but at length the
Mayor and his Committee were able to announce that premises had been
taken on a lease of seven years (by which time an end to the war
might reasonably be predicted) in Passage Street, as you go towards
the ferry; the exterior whitewashed and fitted with green jalousie
shutters; the interior also cleaned and whitewashed, and a ward
opened with two beds. Though few enough to meet the contingencies of
invasion, and a deal too few (especially while they remained
unoccupied) to satisfy the zeal of Miss Pescod's corps of nurses
(which by the end of the second week numbered forty-three, with
sixteen probationary members), these two beds exhausted our
subscriptions for the time. A Ladies' Thursday Evening Working Party
supplied them with sheets, pillows and pillow-cases, blankets and
coverlets (twenty-two coverlets).

The Institution, as we have seen, was intended for a War Hospital;
but pending invasion, and to get our nurses accustomed to the work,
there seemed no harm in admitting as our first patient a sailor from
Plymouth Dock who, having paid a lengthy call at the "King of
Prussia" and drunk there exorbitantly, on the way to his ship had
walked over the edge of the Town Quay. The tide being low, he had
escaped drowning, but at the price of three broken ribs.

It is related of this man that early in his convalescence he sat up
and demanded of the Visiting Committee (the Mayor and Miss Pescod) a
translation of two texts which hung framed on the wall facing his
bed. They had been illuminated by Miss Sally Tregentil at the
instance of the Vicar (a Master of Arts of the University of Oxford)
--the one, "_Parcere Subjectis_," the other, "_Dulce et Decorum est
Pro Patria Mori_"

"Ah," said the Mayor, with a rallying glance at Miss Pescod, "that's
more than any of us know. That's Latin!"

"Excuse me," put in Dr. Hansombody, who had been measuring out a
draught at the little table by the window, "I don't pretend to be a
scholar; but I