Miss Nightingale was not long at Scutari without being touched by the pitiable condition of the women camp-followers, separated often from their regiments, and in a very forlorn state. Miss Nightingale deputed the care of them in large measure to Mrs. Bracebridge, who, with her husband, collected and administered a separate fund for giving assistance to the wives, women, and children of soldiers at Scutari. A Lying-in Hospital was organized; and Miss Nightingale found employment for many of the women, both in washing as aforesaid, and in making up old linen into various hospital requisites. Here, too, helpful volunteers presently arrived. The Rev. Dr. and Lady Alicia Blackwood were moved after the Battle of Inkerman to go out to Scutari and see if they could be of use. Dr. Blackwood asked and obtained an appointment as a military chaplain; and, on their arrival, Lady Alicia went straight to Miss Nightingale and asked what she could do to help:-- "The reply she gave me," wrote Lady Alicia, "or rather the question she put me in reply, after a few seconds of silence, with a peculiar expression of countenance, made an indelible impression. 'Do you mean what you say?' 'Yes, certainly; why do you ask me?' 'Because I have had several such applications before, and when I have suggested work, I found it could not be done, or some excuse was made; it was not exactly the sort of thing intended, it required special suitability, &c.' 'Well,' I replied, 'I am in earnest; we came out here with no other wish than to help where we could.' 'Very well, then, you really can help me if you will. In this Barrack are now located some two hundred poor women in the most abject misery. A great number have been sent down from Varna; they are in rags, and covered with vermin. My heart bleeds for them; but my work is with the soldiers, not with their wives. Now, will you undertake to look after them? If you will take them as your charge, I will send an orderly who will show you their haunts.'"[113] [113] _Narrative of a Residence on the Bosphorus_, p. 49. Any reader who wishes to be harrowed should read the following pages in Lady Alicia's Journal. She died in July 1913 in her 95th year. Lady Alicia went, and with her husband was of great assistance. Miss Nightingale was mindful also of the families of her nurses. Some of them were wives and widows who had left children at home. "Many things turn up," wrote Lady Verney to a friend, "for us to do for Florence; as in looking after the children of her nurses." And Mrs. Nightingale wrote similarly (April 1855):-- Flo has been writing incessantly lately about her nurses' families, for whom the best seem getting very anxious, and she scarcely mentions anything else. We have seen and heard much in visiting them which is a great pleasure to us.