r work
with kindness and intelligence.

It was in 1820, the year George the Third's long life quite faded
out, that the younger of the two daughters of William Shore
Nightingale was born at Florence, and named after that lovely city.

Mr. Nightingale, of Embley Park, Hampshire, and the Lea Hurst,
Derbyshire, was a wealthy land-owner. He was of the Shores of
Derbyshire, but inherited the fortune with the name of Nightingale
through his mother. Lea Hurst, where Miss Nightingale passed the
summer months of each year, is situated in the Matlock district,
among bold masses of limestone rock, gray walls, full of fossils,
covered with moss and lichen, with the changeful river Derwent now
dashing over its stony bed, now quietly winding between little dales
with clefts and dingles. Those who have travelled by the Derby and
Buxton Railway will remember the narrow valleys, the mountain
streams, the wide spans of high moorland, the distant ranges of
hills beyond the hills of the district. Lea Hurst, a gable-ended
house, standing among its own woods and commanding wonderful views
of the Peak country, is about two miles from Cromford station.

At Lea Hurst much of Florence Nightingale's childhood was passed.
There she early developed that intense love for every living
suffering thing, that grew with her growth, until it became the
master-passion of her life.

Florence Nightingale always retained her belief in animals. Many
years after her name was known all over the world, she wrote: "A
small pet animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for
long chronic cases especially." An invalid, in giving an account of
his nursing by a nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the
dog. "Above all," he said, "it did not talk." Even Florence
Nightingale's maimed dolls were tenderly nursed and bandaged.

Mr. Nightingale was a man singularly in advance of his time as
regards the training of girls. The "higher education of women" was
unknown to the general public in those days, but not to Mr.
Nightingale. His daughter was taught mathematics, and studied the
classics, history, and modern languages under her father's
guidance. These last were afterward of the greatest use to her in
the Crimea. But she was no "learned lady;" only a well-educated
Englishwoman all round. She was an excellent musician, and skilful
in work with the needle; and the delicate trained touch thus
acquired stood her in good stead, for the soldiers used to s