the recollection of these twin "oddments" might have saved her
disappointment. Joan knew of a new road that avoided Mrs. Denton's
pitfalls. She grew impatient of being perpetually pulled back.

For the _Nursing Times_ she wrote a series of condensed biographies,
entitled "Ladies of the Lamp," commencing with Elizabeth Fry. They
formed a record of good women who had battled for the weak and suffering,
winning justice for even the uninteresting. Miss Lavery was delighted
with them. But when Joan proposed exposing the neglect and even cruelty
too often inflicted upon the helpless patients of private Nursing Homes,
Miss Lavery shook her head.

"I know," she said. "One does hear complaints about them. Unfortunately
it is one of the few businesses managed entirely by women; and just now,
in particular, if we were to say anything, it would be made use of by our
enemies to injure the Cause."

There was a summer years ago--it came back to Joan's mind--when she had
shared lodgings with a girl chum at a crowded sea-side watering-place.
The rooms were shockingly dirty; and tired of dropping hints she
determined one morning to clean them herself. She climbed a chair and
started on a row of shelves where lay the dust of ages. It was a jerry-
built house, and the result was that she brought the whole lot down about
her head, together with a quarter of a hundred-weight of plaster.

"Yes, I thought you'd do some mischief," had commented the landlady,
wearily.

It seemed typical. A jerry-built world, apparently. With the best
intentions it seemed impossible to move in it without doing more harm