ather came in all its intensity,
and I took to manufacturing cooling beverages for my friends and
customers, my store was always full. To please all was somewhat
difficult, and occasionally some of them were scarcely so polite as
they should have been to a perplexed hostess, who could scarcely be
expected to remember that Lieutenant A. had bespoken his sangaree an
instant before Captain B. and his friends had ordered their claret
cup.

In anticipation of the hot weather, I had laid in a large stock of
raspberry vinegar, which, properly managed, helps to make a pleasant
drink; and there was a great demand for sangaree, claret, and cider
cups, the cups being battered pewter pots. Would you like, reader, to
know my recipe for the favourite claret cup? It is simple enough.
Claret, water, lemon-peel, sugar, nutmeg, and--ice--yes, ice, but not
often and not for long, for the eager officers soon made an end of it.
Sometimes there were dinner-parties at Spring Hill, but of these more
hereafter. At one of the earliest, when the _Times_ correspondent was
to be present, I rode down to Kadikoi, bought some calico and cut it
up into table napkins. They all laughed very heartily, and thought
perhaps of a few weeks previously, when every available piece of linen
in the camp would have been snapped up for pocket-handkerchiefs.

But the reader must not forget that all this time, although there
might be only a few short and sullen roars of the great guns by day,
few nights passed without some fighting in the trenches; and very
often the news of the morning would be that one or other of those I
knew had fallen. These tidings often saddened me, and when I awoke in
the night and heard the thunder of the guns fiercer than usual, I have
quite dreaded the dawn which might usher in bad news.

The deaths in the trenches touched me deeply, perhaps for this reason.
It was very usual, when a young officer was ordered into the trenches,
for him to ride down to Spring Hill to dine, or obtain something more
than his ordinary fare to brighten his weary hours in those fearful
ditches. They seldom failed on these occasions to shake me by the hand
at parting, and sometimes would say, "You see, Mrs. Seacole, I can't
say good-bye to the dear ones at home, so I'll bid you good-bye for
them. Perhaps you'll see them some day, and if the Russians should
knock me over, mother, just tell them I thought of them all--will
you?" And although all this might be sai