But it had become a habit with her to look at every building with an eye to its suitability as a nurse training school -she had once, on a Paris holiday, found herself to her horror rejecting the Elysee Palace as unworthy of further notice-and as a nurse training school Nightingale House was obviously quite impossible. She had only to look at it for the objections to spring to mind. Most of the rooms would be far too large. Where, for instance, would one find cozy offices for the principal tutor, clinical instructor or school secretary? Then the building would be extremely difficult to head adequately and those oriel windows, picturesque no doubt if one liked that sort of thing, would keep out a great deal of light Worse still, there was something forbidding, even frightening, about the house. When the Profession (Miss Beale, in defiance of an unfortunate comparison, always thought of it with a capital P) was climbing so painfully into the twentieth century, kicking away the stones of outworn attitudes and methods- Miss Beale was frequently required to make speeches and certain pet phrases tended to stick in her mind-it really was a pity to house young students in this Victorian pile. It would do no harm to incorporate a strong comment about the need for a new school in her report Nightingale House was rejected even before she set foot in it.

But there was nothing to criticize in her welcome. As she reached the top step, the heavy door swung open letting out a gust of warm air and a smell of fresh coffee. A uniformed maid stood deferentially aside and behind her down the wide oak staircase, gleaming against the dark paneling like a Renaissance portrait in gray and gold, came the figure of Matron Mary Taylor, hand out-stretched. Miss Beale assumed her bright professional smile, compounded of happy expectation and general reassurance, and stepped forward to meet her. The ill-fated inspection of the John Carpendar Training School had begun.