e are four hundred persons in all phases of
suffering, in neat, cheerful wards, brightened by pots of flowers, and
the faces of kind, devoted women.

And who is this woman to whom the government of Great Britain felt
that it owed so much, and whom the whole world delights to honor?

Florence Nightingale, born in 1820, in the beautiful Italian city
of that name, is the younger of two daughters of William Shore
Nightingale, a wealthy land-owner, who inherited both the name and
fortune of his granduncle, Peter Nightingale. The mother was the
daughter of the eminent philanthropist and member of Parliament,
William Smith.

Most of Miss Nightingale's life has been spent on their beautiful
estate, Lea Hurst, in Derbyshire, a lovely home in the midst of
picturesque scenery. In her youth her father instructed her carefully
in the classics and higher mathematics; a few years later, partly
through extensive travel, she became proficient in French, German, and
Italian.

Rich, pretty, and well-educated, what was there more that she could
wish for? Her heart, however, did not turn toward a fashionable life.
Very early she began to visit the poor and the sick near Lea Hurst,
and her father's other estate at Embly Park, Hampshire. Perhaps the
mantle of the mother's father had fallen upon the young girl.

She had also the greatest tenderness toward dumb animals, and never
could bear to see them injured. Miss Alldridge, in an interesting
sketch of Miss Nightingale, quotes the following story from _Little
Folks:_--

"Some years ago, when the celebrated Florence Nightingale was a little
girl, living at her father's home, a large, old Elizabethan house,
with great woods about it, in Hampshire, there was one thing that
struck everybody who knew her. It was that she seemed to be always
thinking what she could do to please or help any one who needed either
help or comfort. She was very fond, too, of animals, and she was so
gentle in her way, that even the shyest of them would come quite close
to her, and pick up whatever she flung down for them to eat.

"There was, in the garden behind the house, a long walk with trees on
each side, the abode of many squirrels; and when Florence came down
the walk, dropping nuts as she went along, the squirrels would run
down the trunks of their trees, and, hardly waiting until she passed
by, would pick up the prize and dart away, with their little bushy
tails curled over their backs, and their black