“When Miss Stanley reached England, Her Majesty the Queen (anxious, of course, to hear all about her soldiers) sent for her; and when the interview was nearly over Her Majesty asked her what she thought the poor soldiers would like—she was anxious to send them a present. Miss Stanley said: ‘Oh, I do know what they would like—plenty of flannel shirts, mufflers, butter, and treacle.’ Her Majesty said they must have all these things; and they did come out in abundance: Kullali got its share of the gifts. But the very name of butter or treacle was enough for the doctors: they said they would not allow it into the wards, because it would be going about in bits of paper and daubing everything. So Rev. Mother at once interposed, and said if the doctors allowed it, she would have it distributed in a way that could give no trouble. They apologized, and said they should have known that, and at once left everything to her. Each Sister got her portion of butter and treacle (which were given only to the convalescent patients), and when the bell rang every evening for tea she stood at the table in the centre of the ward, and each soldier walked over and got his bread buttered, and some treacle if he wished spread on like jam. We told them it was a gift from the Queen; and if Her Majesty could only have seen how gratified they were it would have given her pleasure. One evening Lady Stratford, and some distinguished guests who were staying at the Embassy, came, and were much pleased to see how happy and comfortable the men were, and how much they enjoyed Her Majesty’s gifts.” CHAPTER XIV. _Letters from Scutari—Kinglake on Miss Nightingale and her dynasty—The refusal of a new contingent._ Miss Nightingale’s saving sense of humour gleams forth in her letters in the most delightful way, even in the darkest days. In the following, something of the hugeness of her task is dimly seen through the comic background of the unbecoming cap that “If I’d known, ma’am, I wouldn’t have come, ma’am.” Here is the letter just as it is given in Lord Herbert’s life. It begins abruptly, evidently quoting from a conversation just held with one of the staff nurses:— “‘I came out, ma’am, prepared to submit to everything, to be put upon in every way. But there are some things, ma’am, one can’t submit to. There is the caps, ma’am, that suits one face and some that suits another; and if I’d known, ma’am, about the caps, great as was my desire to come out to nurse at Scutari, I wouldn’t have come, ma’am.’—_Speech of Mrs. L., Barrack Hospital, Scutari, Asiatic Side, November 14, 1854._