ten at
such a season, when a woman's voice and a woman's care have brought to
their minds recollections of those happy English homes which some of
them never saw again; but many did, who will remember their
woman-comrade upon the bleak and barren heights before Sebastopol.

Then their calling me "mother" was not, I think, altogether unmeaning.
I used to fancy that there was something homely in the word; and,
reader, you cannot think how dear to them was the smallest thing that
reminded them of home.

Some of my Crimean patients, who were glad of me as nurse and
doctress, bore names familiar to all England, and perhaps, did I ask
them, they would allow me to publish those names. I am proud to think
that a gallant sailor, on whose brave breast the order of Victoria
rests--a more gallant man can never wear it--sent for the doctress
whom he had known in Kingston, when his arm, wounded on the fatal 18th
of June, refused to heal, and I think that the application I
recommended did it good; but I shall let some of my patients' letters,
taken from a large bundle, speak for me. Of course I must suppress
most of their names. Here are two from one of my best and kindest
sons.

"My dear Mamma,--Will you kindly give the bearer the
bottle you promised me when you were here this morning,
for my jaundice. Please let me know how much I am to
take of it. Yours truly,

"F. M., _C. E._"

You see the medicine does him good, for a few days later comes another
from the same writer:--

"My dear Mrs. Seacole,--I have finished the bottle,
which has done my jaundice a deal of good. Will you
kindly send another by bearer. Truly yours,

"F. M."

It was a capital prescription which had done his jaundice good. There
was so great a demand for it, that I kept it mixed in a large pan,
ready to ladle it out to the scores of applicants who came for it.

Sometimes they would send for other and no less important medicines.
Here is such an application from a sick officer:--

"Mrs. Seacole would confer a favour on the writer, who
is very ill, by giving his servant (the bearer) a boiled
or roast fowl; if it be impossible to obtain them, some
chicken broth would be very acceptable.

"I am yours, truly obliged,

"J. K., 18th R. S."

Doesn't that read like a sick man's letter, glad enough to welcome any
woman's face? Here are some gentlemen of the Commissariat anxiou