_The Times_ almoner now found his days fully taken up in visits of investigation to the wards, under the guidance of the Lady-in-Chief, and many hours of each day were spent in her office in the Nurses’ Tower, taking down in his notebook the things which were pressingly needed and dispatching orders to the storekeepers of Constantinople. Miss Nightingale had now found the kind of help really needed. Here was English gold to replenish her stores at discretion, and she was no longer left to depend on promiscuous charity, which sent embroidered cambric when good stout calico would have been more useful, or fancy mufflers to men who needed shirts. On the eve of his return to England Mr. Macdonald wrote of the Lady-in-Chief:-- “Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of the spoiler distressingly nigh, there is this incomparable woman sure to be seen. Her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort even among the struggles of expiring nature. She is a ‘ministering angel’ without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow’s face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hands, making her solitary rounds. “The popular instinct was not mistaken which, when she had set out from England on the mission of mercy, hailed her as a heroine; I trust she may not earn her title to a higher though sadder appellation. No one who has observed her fragile figure and delicate health can avoid misgivings lest these should fail. With the heart of a true woman and the manners of a lady, accomplished and refined beyond most of her sex, she combines a surprising calmness of judgment and promptitude and decision of character. [Illustration: MISS NIGHTINGALE AND THE DYING SOLDIER--A SCENE AT SCUTARI HOSPITAL WITNESSED BY M. SOYER. [_To face p. 176_ ] “I have hesitated to speak of her hitherto as she deserves, because I well knew that no praise of mine could do justice to her merits, while it might have tended to embarrass the frankness with which she has always accepted the aid furnished her through the fund. As that source of supply is now nearly exhausted and my mission approaches its close, I can express myself with more freedom on this subject, and I confidently assert that but for Miss Nightingale the people of England would scarcely, with all their solicitude, have been spared the additional pang of knowing, which they must have done sooner or later, that their soldiers, even in the hospital, had found scanty refuge and relief from the unparelleled miseries with which this war has hitherto been attended.”