"She is rather high in stature, fair in complexion and slim in person; her hair is brown, and is worn quite plain; her physiognomy is most pleasing; her eyes, of a bluish tint, speak volumes, and are always sparkling with intelligence; her mouth is small and well formed, while her lips act in unison, and make known the impression of her heart--one seems the reflex of the other. Her visage, as regards expression, is very remarkable, and one can almost anticipate by her countenance what she is about to say; alternately, with matters of the most grave import, a gentle smile passes radiantly over her countenance, thus proving her evenness of temper; at other times, when wit or a pleasantry prevails, the heroine is lost in the happy, good-natured smile which pervades her face, and you recognize only the charming woman. "Her dress is generally of a grayish or black tint; she wears a simple white cap, and often a rough apron. In a word, her whole appearance is religiously simple and unsophisticated. In conversation no member of the fair sex can be more amiable and gentle than Miss Nightingale. Removed from her arduous and cavalierlike duties, which require the nerve of a Hercules--and she possesses it when required--she is Rachel[9] on the stage in both tragedy and comedy." The long and dreary winter was over. The snow was gone, and the birds sang once more among the cypresses of Scutari, and sunned themselves, and bathed and splashed in the marble basins at the foot of the tombs; but there was no abatement of the stream that crept up the hill to the hospital. No frostbite now--I haven't told you about that, because it is too dreadful for me to tell or for you to hear--but no less sickness. Cholera was raging in the camp before Sebastopol, and typhus, and dysentery; the men were dying like flies. The dreaded typhus crept into the hospital and attacked the workers. Eight of the doctors were stricken down, seven of whom died. "For a time there was only one medical attendant in a fit state of health to wait on the sick in the Barrack Hospital, and his services were needed in twenty-four wards." Next three of the devoted nurses were taken, two dying of fever, the third of cholera. More and more severe grew the strain of work and anxiety for Miss Nightingale, and those who watched her with loving anxiety trembled. So fragile, so worn; such a tremendous weight of care and responsibility on those delicate shoulders! Is she not paler than usual to-day? What would become of us if she----