As the poor fellows were brought in, they looked up, and saw a slender woman in a black dress, with a pale, beautiful face surmounted by a close-fitting white cap. Quietly, but with an authority that no one ever thought of disputing, she gave her orders, directing where the sufferers were to be taken, what doctor was to be summoned, what nurses to attend them. During these days she was known sometimes to stand on her feet _twenty hours at a time_, seeing that each man was put in the right place, where he might receive the right kind of help. I ask you to think of this for a moment. Twenty hours! nearly the whole of a day and night. Where a particularly severe operation was to be performed, Miss Nightingale was present whenever it was possible, giving to both surgeon and patient the comfort and support of her wonderful calm strength and sympathy. In this dreadful inrush of the Inkerman wounded, the surgeons had first of all to separate the more hopeful cases from those that seemed desperate. The working force was so insufficient, they must devote their energies to saving those who could be saved; this is how it seemed to them. Once Miss Nightingale saw five men lying together in a corner, left just as they had come from the vessel. "Can nothing be done for them?" she asked the surgeon in charge. He shook his head. "Then will you give them to me?" "Take them," replied the surgeon, "if you like; but we think their case is hopeless." Do you remember the little girl sitting by the wounded dog? All night long Florence Nightingale sat beside those five men, one of the faithful nurses with her, feeding them with a spoon at short intervals till consciousness returned, and a little strength began to creep back into their poor torn bodies; then washing their wounds, making them tidy and decent, and all the time cheering them with kind and hopeful words. When morning came the surgeons, amazed, pronounced the men in good condition to be operated upon, and--we will hope, though the story does not tell the end--saved. Is it any wonder that one poor lad burst into tears as he cried: "I can't help it, I can't indeed, when I see them. Only think of Englishwomen coming out here to nurse us! It seems so homelike and comfortable." In those days one of the nurses wrote home to England: "It does appear absolutely impossible to meet the wants of those who are dying of dysentery and exhaustion; out of four wards committed to my care, eleven men have died in the night, simply from exhaustion, which, humanly speaking, might have been stopped, could I have laid my hand at once on such nourishment as I knew they ought to have had. "It is necessary to be as near the scene of war as we are, to know the horrors which we have seen and heard of. I know not which sight is most heartrending--to witness fine strong men and youths worn down by exhaustion and sinking under it, or others coming in fearfully wounded.