We were quite glad to return to our good old hospital, and since then I have been doing Sister's holiday work, and now I have just been appointed Sister in the front surgery (where all the new cases and accidents come in); it is utterly different from being in the wards, but I think I shall find it interesting--at any rate for a time. I shall wait to tell you about it until I have been here a little longer, and have taken my bearings more correctly. XVI GENERAL HOSPITAL, LONDON, _January 1896_. I think I shall be rather glad when I get a ward of my own and settle down; but every one seems to think I am lucky in getting such varied experience, so I suppose I ought to be grateful, and it is not yet two years since I first entered here. I spent six months as Sister in the front surgery, and it was very interesting. There had never been a sister in charge there before, but just one old staff nurse, who had let the dressers do just what they liked, and there was a lot of waste and much disorder. Matron gave me a very good probationer, and she was just as keen on getting the place nice and trim as I was. It took us a week or two to get all the drawers &c., scrubbed out and tidy, and a good many more weeks before we got all the splints sorted and padded. The Medical Superintendent was pleased, because I managed to reduce the cost of dressings every week from £10 to £7 before I had been there a month, and it was still further reduced after a few more weeks. Of course it is difficult for young dressers (who come on for only three months at a time) to understand how much difference a little extravagance in each dressing makes in the weekly bills; and they can't be expected to know the relative value of different kinds of wool, &c., unless it is pointed out to them, but as a rule, when they do understand, they are quite willing to use the cheaper dressings (for cases where they do just as well) provided that we keep a supply ready to their hands.