Miriam wrote to Miss Tippit expressing her newly-formed wish. Miss Tippit, with some doubts as to her friend's fitness for the duty, promised to do what she could; and at last, after complete recovery, Miriam was allowed to begin a kind of apprenticeship to the art of nursing in a small hospital, recommended by Miss Tippit's friend, the doctor. One morning, a bright day in June, she was taken there. When the door opened, there was disclosed a long white room with beds on either side, and a broad passage down the middle. The walls were relieved by a few illuminated sentences, scriptural and secular; women dressed in a blue uniform were moving about noiselessly, and one of the physicians on the staff, with some students or assistants, was standing beside a patient happily unconscious, and demonstrating that he could not live. Round one of the beds a screen was drawn; Miriam did not quite know what it meant, but she guessed and shuddered. She passed on to a little room at the end, and here she was introduced to her new mistress, the lady-superintendent. She was a small, well-formed woman of about thirty, with a pale thin face, lightish brown hair, grey eyes, and thinnish lips. She also was dressed in uniform, but with a precision and grace which showed that though the material might be the same as that used by her underlings, it was made up at the West End. She was evidently born to command, as little women often are. It was impossible to be five minutes in her company without being affected by her domination. Her very clothes felt it, for not a rebellious wrinkle or crease dared to show itself. The nurses came to her almost every moment for directions, which were given with brevity and clearness, and obeyed with the utmost deference. The furniture was like that of a yacht, very compact, scrupulously clean, and very handy. There was a complete apparatus for instantaneously making tea, a luxurious little armchair specially made for its owner, a minute writing-case, and, for decorations, there were dainty and delicate water-colours. Half-a-dozen books lay about, a novel or two of the best kind, and two or three volumes of poems. "You wish to become a nurse?" said Miss Dashwood. "Yes." "I am afraid you hardly know what it is, and that when you do know you will find it very disagreeable. So many young women come here with entirely false notions as to their duties." Miriam was silent; Miss Dashwood's manner depressed her. "However, you can try. You will have to begin at the very bottom. I always insist on this with my probationers. It teaches them how the work ought to be done, and, in addition, proper habits of subordination. For three months you will have to scrub the floors and assist in keeping the wards in order."