I am rather thin in consequence of the heat, but I am as brown as a berry; so I am sure they ought to think I look tough enough for the work.
XII
General Hospital, London,
May 1894.
It is a long time since I last wrote to you, but there has not been much of interest to write about.
I tried very hard to get into some London hospital last autumn, but could not find a vacancy in any really good one, so I made up my mind it was better to wait for a vacancy here—where I had always wanted to train—than to slip in anywhere, where I did not know that the training was good. So I have just stayed at home, and in the summer played tennis and cricket, and learnt to make butter and jam, &c., and in the winter had a little hunting (on rather a stupid horse that was always doing something foolish, and one day distinguished himself by lying down at the meet!), and helped to teach in the night-school, where big lads and men, who had been cutting turnips for the sheep all day, came in the evenings to learn arithmetic, geography, &c., with much perseverance.
I went to help at the N. General Hospital for a month in the autumn, as they had a lot of nurses ill. It was rather funny, as I was sent to a men's ward (35 beds) as staff nurse; and of course I had had to do only with children before, so I had to pretend to know rather more than I did.
I had been there only a few days when the Sister of my ward went off duty with influenza, and there did not seem to be any one to come in her place; so we had to muddle along without a Sister. But everything went on all right, and the patients did well.
The Matron asked me to stay on permanently; but I thought a London certificate would be more valuable afterwards, so I only stayed until their sick nurses were able to return to duty.