The story of Florence Nigthingale's life is told in the form of a rehearsal of a play to be performed at a later time. It passes from her youth, theough the famous, but brief, period of the Lady With the Lamp, and her many activities afterwards until, at the close of her long life, she is presented-barely aware of it-with the Order of Merit. Under the director the cast arrive in rehearsal clothes and throughout they make use of what costumes, props and furniture are available. "The whole point of putting on this play," states the author, "is that, though the members of the company do not actually improvize the text, they do improvize everything else. You use what resources you have." The period of the play, then, is the present, though the time moves through a great part of the ninteenth century and a few years of the twentieth.