great obstacle in the way of speedier reform was want of money; but she made excuses for her hero. "Sir John Lawrence," she wrote to Madame Mohl (March 20, 1865), "is just as much hampered with the Horse Guards out there as I am here. He is always writing to me to apologize for the little progress he makes. By the very last mail he says I shall think him 'timid and perhaps even time-serving.' I could not help laughing. Certainly Sir J. Lawrence is the only man who ever called Sir J. Lawrence a time-server,--except in the highest possible sense, of serving his country at her greatest time of need in the highest possible way." She was constantly corresponding with Lord Stanley, urging him to win points for her from the Indian Secretary. "I have just seen Sir Charles Wood," wrote Lord Stanley (Feb. 10). "He agrees as to the expediency of sending home a yearly report of the sanitary stations in each Presidency." "Pray never speak of being troublesome," he wrote again (May 15): "it is a real pleasure to me to help you a little in the great work: I know no other way in which my time can be made equally useful." He frequently saw Sir Charles Wood on matters which she urged, and he won what was almost her highest praise. "Lord Stanley," she said, "is a splendid worker." His cool common sense was perhaps a wholesome antidote sometimes to her almost feverish eagerness. "Publicity," he said (Aug. 17), "will in the long-run do what we want. People won't stand being poisoned when they know it." The annual Reports from the Presidencies, obtained by Miss Nightingale some years later (p. 155), were submitted for her "Observations"; and in many other ways, as we shall hear, it was remarkable how close a touch upon the course of sanitary reform in India was maintained by this lady from a bedroom in Mayfair. But essentially Miss Nightingale's work was that of inspirer and pioneer. These chapters will have shown, I think, that a compliment paid to her by the Chairman of the Indian Sanitary Commission was no less true than graceful:--