Young and inexperienced in petty intrigue, I had now to work without friendly encouragement and appreciation, in an establishment where three thousand people were constantly at war about each other’s affairs; with no one about me in whom I had a special interest, while every one was regretting that the installment had been given me before Dr. Schmidt’s death which might have happened just as well from some other excitement. I surveyed the whole arena, and saw very well that, unless I practiced meanness and dishonesty as well as the rest, I could not remain there for any length of time, for scores were ready to calumniate me whenever there was the least thing to be gained by it. I was about to commence a new period of life. I had a solid structure as a foundation, but the superstructure had been built up in so short a time that a change of wind would suffice to cast it down. I resolved, therefore, to tear it down myself and to begin to build another upon the carefully laid basis. I waited only for an opportunity to manifest my intention. This opportunity soon presented itself. Sister Catherine, the deaconess of whom I have spoken, who had been allowed to attend the School for Midwives after my election, through the influence of her theological friends upon Dr. Schmidt (the city magistrates having refused her because I was already the third accepted pupil), had as yet no position. These friends now sought to make her the _second accoucheuse_, I having the first position, with the additional title of Chief. This she would not accept. She, the experienced deaconess, who had been a Florence Nightingale in the typhus epidemic of Silesia, was unwilling to be under the supervision of a woman who had nothing to show but a thorough education, and who was besides eight years younger than herself. Her refusal made my enemies still more hostile. Why they were so anxious for her services I can only explain by supposing that the directors of the hospital wished to annoy Pastor Fliedner, the originator of the Kaiserswerth Sisterhood. For, in placing Sister Catherine in this position, they robbed him of one of the very best nurses that he had ever had in his institution. My desire to reconcile the government of the hospital, in order that I might have peace in my position to pursue my development and education so as to realize and manifest to the people the truth of what Dr. Schmidt had affirmed of me, induced me to go to one of the directors and propose that Sister Catherine should be installed on equal terms with me, offering to drop the title of Chief and to consent that the department should be divided into two.