“Here’s a copy of it,” Miss Porter said, producing the picture. “And Lois, I declare you look like her. There, you may keep this print to refer to, it ought to be very easy to find a peasant’s costume. Now Polly, who’s your favorite heroine?”
Polly rumpled her hair, hesitated, and rumpled her hair again.
“She’s not very well known, at least, I never heard any one talk about her,” she answered, “but I think she’s the bravest woman that ever lived. We had a book about her at home, that I used to read and re-read on rainy days.”
“Well, what’s her name?” Lois demanded impatiently.
“Florence Nightingale, the Angel of the Crimea,” Polly said, very solemnly.
“Oh, Polly, do you love her, too?” Miss King’s eyes were shining. “So do I.”
“You couldn’t choose a better woman to portray, dear child,” Miss Porter spoke up. “You’ll find the Seniors know all about her. They are studying about the Crimean War this winter.”
“Please tell me who she was, I never even heard of her,” said Lois apologetically.
Miss King began: “She was an Englishwoman, the first one to go out as a nurse for the soldiers. She thought that if they fought for their country, the least their country could do for them was to give them proper care when they were wounded. At first the generals resented her interfering and thought she was fussy because she wanted clean hospitals and clean food—”
“But the soldiers adored her,” Polly interrupted, and then carried away by the theme, she continued. “She always walked through the long hospital wards every night and they used to turn and kiss her shadow on the wall as she passed, and they named her the Angel of the Crimea. Oh, she was so brave. All the hardships she went through, cold and hunger.” Polly stopped speaking, but her thoughts went back to the stirring scenes she had read about and thrilled over so often in a certain little window seat off the broad stairway in her old home.