with the doctor for the amputation case.

Well, there was nothing to eat and only the dirtiest old woman in all
the world to cook it, but at three o'clock we managed to serve the
patients with an elegant dish of underdone lentils for the first course,
and overdone potatoes for the second, and partook ourselves gratefully
thereof, after they had finished. In the afternoon of that day a meeting
of the Red Cross Committee was held at the hospital, and I was sent for
and formally installed as Matron of the hospital with full authority to
make any improvements I thought necessary, and with the stipulation that
I might have two or three days' leave every few weeks, to go and visit
my scattered flock in Brussels. The appointment had to be made subject
to the approval of the German commandant, but apparently he made no
objection--at any rate I never heard of any.

And then began a very happy time for me, in spite of many difficulties
and disappointments. I can never tell the goodness of the Committee and
the Belgian doctor to me, and their kindness in letting me introduce all
our pernickety English ways to which they were not accustomed, won my
gratitude for ever. Never were Sisters so loyal and unselfish as mine.
The first part of the time they were overworked and underfed, and no
word of grumbling or complaint was ever heard from them. They worked
from morning till night and got the hospital into splendid order. The
Committee were good enough to allow me to keep the best of the Red Cross
workers as probationers and to forbid entrance to the others. We had
suffered so much at their hands before this took place, that I was truly
grateful for this permission as no discipline or order was possible with
a large number of young girls constantly rushing in and out, sitting on
patients' beds, meddling with dressings, and doing all kinds of things
they shouldn't.