meanness and dishonesty as well as the rest, I could not remain there for
any length of time; for scores were ready to calumniate me whenever there
was the least thing to be gained by it.

I was about to commence a new period of life. I had a solid structure as
a foundation; but the superstructure had been built up in so short a time,
that a change of wind would suffice to cast it down. I resolved,
therefore, to tear it down myself, and to begin to build another upon the
carefully laid basis; and only waited for an opportunity to manifest my
intention. This opportunity soon presented itself. Sister Catherine, the
deaconess of whom I have spoken, who had been allowed to attend the School
of Midwives after my election, through the influence of her theological
friends upon Dr. Schmidt (the city magistrates having refused her because
I was already the third accepted pupil), had as yet no position: and these
friends now sought to make her the second _accoucheuse_; I having the
first position, with the additional title of Chief. This she would not
accept. She, the experienced deaconess, who had been a Florence
Nightingale in the typhus epidemic of Silesia, was unwilling to be under
the supervision of a woman who had nothing to show but a thorough
education, and who was, besides, eight years younger than herself. Her
refusal made my enemies still more hostile. Why they were so anxious for
her services, I can only explain by supposing that the directors of the
hospital wished to annoy Pastor Fliedner, the originator of the
Kaiserswerth Sisterhood; for, in placing Sister Catherine in this
position, they robbed him of one of the very best nurses that he ever had
in his institution.

My desire to reconcile the government of the hospital, in order that I
might have peace in my position to pursue my development and education so
as to realize and manifest to the people the truth of what Dr. Schmidt had