When Miss Nightingale began her work, her energies were concentrated on the Barrack Hospital already described, and on the General Hospital at Scutari, which was a little farther removed. The other British hospitals in the East also came under her supervision, but Scutari claimed at first her undivided personal attention. Attached to her staff were the thirty-eight trained nurses who had accompanied her, the Rev. Sidney Osborne, the chaplain, and her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge of Atherstone Hall. Mrs. Bracebridge was to act as overseer of the housekeeping department. A most valuable helper also was Mr. Stafford, a young man of family who had left the drawing-rooms of Mayfair to go to Scutari and “fag” for the Lady-in-Chief. He wrote letters, went on missions of inquiry, and did anything and everything which a handy and gallant gentleman could do to make himself useful to a lady whom he felt honoured to serve. Taken collectively, this little group may be termed the “party of reform” who were installed at Scutari at the beginning of the winter of 1854. Lady Stratford de Redcliffe, the wife of our Ambassador at Constantinople, and her “beauteous guest,” Lady George Paget, were also most helpful in sending little comforts for the wounded officers, but it was said of Miss Nightingale that she “thought only of the men.” The common soldier was undoubtedly her chief concern. [Illustration: THE LADY-IN-CHIEF IN HER QUARTERS AT THE BARRACK HOSPITAL.] The Lady-in-Chief and her staff had their quarters in a tower at one of the corners of the hospital, and the busy life which went on there from day to day is thus described by the Rev. Sidney Osborne. “Entering the door leading into the Sisters’ Tower,” he writes, “you at once find yourself a spectator of a busy and interesting scene. There is a large room with two or three doors opening from it on one side; on the other, one door opening into an apartment in which many of the nurses and sisters slept, and had, I believe, their meals. In the centre was a large kitchen table: bustling about this might be seen the high-priestess of the room, Mrs. C----. Often as I have had occasion to pass through this room I do not recollect ever finding her absent from it or unoccupied. At this table she received the various matters from the kitchen and stores of the sisterhood, which attendant sisters or nurses were ever ready to take to the sick in any and every part of these gigantic hospitals. It was a curious scene, and a close study of it afforded a practical lesson in the working of true common-sense benevolence.