These two branches of work now occupied the front; but they did not cause Miss Nightingale to abandon other responsibilities, and the reader must supply a background of the various kinds of work described in earlier chapters. She was still busy with details of Indian sanitation, for the _Sanitary Annual_ was still submitted to her revision. She was still consulted on questions of nursing administration and hospital construction. "They are in difficulties," wrote Sir Harry Verney (Jan. 30, 1881), in forwarding an application of this kind; "so they appeal to you--the Family Solicitor to whom we all turn when we get into a scrape, but your Family is a large one--the whole human race." She still filled the part of Lady Bountiful, with more than that lady's usual care for detail, to her poorer neighbours in the country. The Working-Men's Institute at Holloway (near Lea Hurst) referred to her the question whether playing-cards should be admitted. She was in favour of the cards, but a majority of the Committee were against them, and, before giving her opinion, she conducted an inquiry as elaborate and far-searching as if it were a case of cholera. And more assiduously, rather than less, did she devote herself to the affairs of the Nightingale School and its old pupils. There are years at this period during which as many as 400 letters from nurses were preserved in this sort, and there are Sisters to each of whom more than fifty letters were written. She introduced the innovation of sending her probationers to the National Training School of Cookery, and she looked over their notes on the lessons, founding thereon hints to the teachers. The extension of trained nursing in workhouse infirmaries called for more Nightingale nurses. "Yesterday," she wrote to Madame Mohl (June 30, 1881), "we opened the new Marylebone Infirmary (760 beds). We nurse it with our trained nurses, thank God! I have each of these women to see for three or four hours alone before she begins work." It was during this period that Miss Nightingale paid her first visit to the new St. Thomas's Hospital. She drove there on January 27, 1882, and inspected the quarters of her Training School and one of the Hospital wards. "Just one week has elapsed," wrote the Matron (Feb. 4), "since you honoured us with your more than welcome presence, and I cannot go to bed to-night until I have thanked you for all the admiration in which you speak of _your Home_ and the pretty Alexandra Ward. No words of mine can ever express the delight it gave us to welcome you, our dearly loved Chief, to the Home and School which has for more than 20 years borne 'her honoured name.'" The time was drawing near when pupils of the School were to follow in the footsteps of their Chief and do nursing service in the East. III