[_To face p. 32._ ] Then in spring-time there was sure to be a pet lamb to be fed, and Florence and her sister were indeed happy at this acquisition to the home pets. The pony which she rode and the dog which was ever at her side were of course her particular dumb friends. I am not sure, however, that she thought them dumb, for she and they understood one another perfectly. The love of animals, which was so marked a characteristic in Florence Nightingale as a child, remained with her throughout life and made her very sympathetic to invalids who craved for the company of some favourite animal. Many nurses and doctors disapprove of their patients having pets about them, but, to quote the Queen of Nurses’ own words, “A small pet animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially. An invalid, in giving an account of his nursing by a nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the dog. ‘Above all,’ he said, ‘it did not talk.’” It was a great source of pleasure to Florence in her early years to be allowed to act as almoner for her mother. Mrs. Nightingale was very kind and benevolent to the people around Lea Hurst and Embley, and supplied the sick with delicacies from her own table. Indeed, she made her homes centres of beneficence for several miles around, and, according to the best traditions of those times, was ready with remedies for simple ailments when the doctor was not at hand. Owing to the fact that Florence had never had measles and whooping cough, her parents had to exercise great caution in permitting her to visit the cottage people; however, she could call at the doors on her pony and leave jelly and puddings from the basket at her saddle-bow without incurring special risk. And she could gather flowers from the garden to brighten a sick-room, or in the lovely spring days load her basket with primroses and bluebells and so carry the scent of the woods to some delicate girl who, like Tennyson’s May Queen, was pining for the sight of field and hedgerow and the flowers which grew but a little distance from her cottage door. Such attentions to the fancies of the sick were little thought of in those times, before flower missions had come into vogue, or the necessity for cheering the patients by pleasing the eye, as well as tending the body, was recognised, but in that, as in much else, our heroine was in advance of her time. Her love of flowers, like fondness for animals, was a part of her nature: it came too as a fitting heritage from the city of flowers under whose sunny sky she had been born.