Quiet and unassuming, yet determined and courageous, Nurse Cavell continued her good work, which was bound to have a marked effect on the future of the Belgian nursing profession. She herself declared that 'the spread of light and knowledge is bound to follow in years to come. The nurses will not only teach, as none others have the opportunity of doing, the laws of health and the prevention and healing of disease; they will show their countrywomen that education and position do not constitute a bar to an independent life; they are rather a good and solid foundation on which to build a career which demands the best and highest qualities that womanhood can offer.' In acting as directress of three hospitals, Miss Cavell found full scope even for her unusual organizing capabilities. In addition to her arduous lectures throughout the day, she gave four lectures to the doctors and two to the nurses every week. She always attended at the operating-theatre herself. One of her greatest pleasures was the children's ward, decorated in blue and white after her own design; she made a special point of visiting the little inmates every evening. The better class of Belgians paid for the services of the private staff of nurses, but the call of the poor never went unheeded. Although Miss Cavell was intensely happy in her work in Brussels, she always looked forward with positive joy to visiting her aged mother, with whom she spent every possible holiday in England. In the summer of 1914 mother and daughter were enjoying one of these affectionate reunions. Suddenly the great war-cloud burst. Edith Cavell was in her mother's garden weeding a bed of heartsease when she heard the news. She needed no heart-searching to decide where her duty lay; and, without hesitation, she returned hotfoot to Belgium, where she had an intuition that she would be wanted. II THE HEEL OF THE OPPRESSOR When Germany had disclosed her infamous designs against the neutrality of Belgium, followed by her declaration of war against France, succeeded in a few hours by the entry of Great Britain into the fray, Miss Cavell's intuition of trouble became an absolute and appalling fact, with the positive certainty that war's ghastly harvest would mean work for nurses in Brussels.