Then on August 16 the Governor-General sent her a letter which must have very seriously shaken her faith. He had asked her (p. 55) to formulate a scheme for female nursing. With her habitual good sense, she had contemplated an experiment in a single hospital and had drawn up a scheme on that basis. Instead of accepting her basis, the Governor-General referred the matter to his medical advisers, who elaborated a scheme for introducing female nursing into seven hospitals. The cost of this larger scheme was prohibitive; and the Government of India, instead of falling back upon Miss Nightingale's proposals, vetoed the whole thing. Sir John McNeill, who had assisted her with her proposals, was very angry, and sent her a hot indictment of the Indian officials. "You must wait for a new Governor-General. Sir John Lawrence has greatly disappointed me." Then, afraid, I suppose, lest she might adopt some of his scathing phrases in replying to Sir John Lawrence, he wrote again, suggesting that dignified silence would be the better course. "It would be mere waste of time and hardly consistent with your name and position to argue with men who flounder about in such a hopeless slough of unreason. I would not even point out their inconsistencies. Both the Governor-General and you are high powers, and your correspondence ought, I think, to be conducted with the reserve that is proper to such persons when your opinions do not coincide. I would merely say, etc. etc." What Sir John McNeill suggested she adopted with some slight modifications. In her reply to the Governor-General (Sept. 26, 1867) she thanked him for his letter and for the documents he enclosed; explained that she had submitted a scheme only because he had asked her to do so; remarked that the scheme which the Government of India had vetoed was not hers, nor anything like it; and added that if at any future time the question should be revived, she would again be willing, if desired, to give any advice or assistance in her power. V