The Nightingale Training School had for many years been extending the area of its influence, and Miss Nightingale herself, in spite of her incessant work in other fields, never lost general control and supervision of it. Year after year, she kept up correspondence, both voluminous and intimate, with Mrs. Wardroper, the Matron. Her brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney, was now Chairman of the Council of the Nightingale Fund; her cousin, Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, had succeeded Mr. Clough as Secretary--a duty which he continues to discharge to this day. Sir Harry Verney saw Miss Nightingale frequently with regard to the business of the School. Between Mr. Bonham Carter and her there is a great mass of correspondence extending over forty years and more; conducted sometimes by an exchange of letters through the post, sometimes by notes of question and answer at her house, as in the case of Dr. Sutherland. Mr. Bonham Carter, alike as Secretary of the Fund and as a cousin devoted to Miss Nightingale personally, gave his time and zeal without stint to the work; but he had independence of character. He was once asked how he contrived to do other things besides serve Miss Nightingale. "When it was getting late," he explained, "I used to say, Now I must go home to dinner." His devotion, good sense, and business-like habits contributed largely to the success of the undertaking, and saved Miss Nightingale much trouble in matters both of detail and of general administrative policy; but questions of what may be called the superior direction of the School were always referred to her, and there were many occasions on which her personal influence was felt to be indispensable. It was especially brought to bear whenever a contingent of Nightingale Nurses was sent from St. Thomas's to occupy new ground. The phrase quoted at the head of this chapter, from a letter by Miss Agnes Jones, when she was thus sent to pioneer work in the Liverpool Workhouse, exactly expresses one side of the relationship between the nurses and Miss Nightingale. But she was more to them than a Chief. She was not a distant and almost impersonal abstraction like "The Widow at Windsor." The Lady in South Street was not only the queen of the Nightingale Nurses, she was also their mother. The principal lieutenants who went out on important service, and many members of the rank and file, maintained constant correspondence with her--sending to her direct reports, consulting her in difficulties, looking to her, and never in vain, for counsel and encouragement. Miss Nightingale took especial pains to help and to influence the Lady Superintendents who went from St. Thomas's in command of nursing parties. Among her earlier papers containing thoughts about her future work, there is more than one reference to "Richelieu's 'Self-multiplication.'" She strove to extend her work by creating lieutenants in her own image.