What specially annoyed Miss Nightingale was that some of the fashionable ladies in the course of gossip had begun to wonder whether her appointment would have the approval of her family. Some officious friend had suggested that "it would be cruel to take her away from her home." This difficulty was disposed of by Miss Nightingale's assurance that the appointment would be submitted to the approval of her mother and father. Her father now agreed to make her an independent allowance, paid quarterly in advance. It was on a scale sufficiently liberal to enable her to offer her services to the Institution entirely gratuitously. She also agreed to pay all the charges (board and lodging included) of the matron (Mrs. Clarke), whom she was to bring with her. Another difficulty was then raised. The superintendent of a nursing-home ought to be present when the doctors went their rounds and when operations were performed. But would it be seemly for a gentlewoman to do this? Miss Nightingale insisted, and an agreement was arrived at in April. She was to enter upon her duties as superintendent as soon as new premises had been secured, and meanwhile she was free to resume her studies in Paris. III She returned to Paris on May 30, and after a week spent with M. and Madame Mohl, during which she again inspected various hospitals, she entered the Maison de la Providence in the Rue Oudinot on June 8. From Paris she kept up correspondence with regard to the new premises for the institution in London. "The indispensable conditions of a suitable house are," she wrote to Lady Canning (June 5), "_first_, that the nurse should never be obliged to quit her floor, except for her own dinner and supper, and her patients' dinner and supper (and even the latter might be avoided by the windlass we have talked about). Without a system of this kind, the nurse is converted into a pair of legs. _Secondly_, That the bells of the patients should all ring in the passage outside the nurse's own door _on that story_, and should have a valve which flies open when its bell rings, and _remains_ open in order that the nurse may see who has rung." The letter continues for some pages to describe other requirements--about a hot-water supply and the like; points which are now in the A B C of hospitals or nursing-homes, but which then were novel counsels of perfection. The idea of a lift, in particular, was new; inquiries were made by the ladies in various parts of the country, and there were many hitches before a suitable apparatus was installed. The correspondence is significant of the attention to practical detail which characterized all Miss Nightingale's work. Meanwhile her work with the Sisters of Charity among the poor came to a tiresome pause. The nurse had herself to be nursed. The nature of the calamity is described in a letter to Madame Mohl, who was paying visits in England at the time:--