t of your Yeomanry Hospital. How
well you have explained everything! Hoping to meet soon,

"Yours affectionately,
"(Signed) ALEXANDRA."[41]

Some fourteen months after my return home a _Gazette_ appeared with the
awards gained during the early part of the war, and great was my delight
to find I had been selected for the coveted distinction of the Royal Red
Cross. The King had previously nominated Lady Georgiana Curzon and
myself to be Ladies of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem,
which entitles its members to wear a very effective enamel locket on a
black bow; but, next to the Red Cross, the medal which I prize most
highly is the same which the soldiers received for service in South
Africa, with the well-known blue and orange striped ribbon. This medal
was given to the professional nurses who were in South Africa, but I
think I was, with one other exception, the only amateur to receive it,
and very unworthy I felt myself when I went to St. James's Palace with
all the gallant and skilful sisterhood of army nurses to share with them
the great honour of receiving the same from His Majesty in person.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Small kettles.

[41] I am allowed to reproduce the foregoing letters by the gracious
permission of Their Majesties the King and Queen.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WORK OF LADY GEORGIANA CURZON, LADY CHESHAM, AND THE
YEOMANRY HOSPITAL, DURING THE WAR--THIRD VOYAGE TO THE CAPE,
1902

"Fight the good fight."

On the pages of history is recorded in golden letters the name and deeds
of Florence Nightingale, who, as the pioneer of scientific hospital
nursing, did so much to mitigate the horrors of war. Her example was
nobly followed half a century later by two other English ladies, who,
although they had not to encounter the desperate odds connected with
ignorance and old-fashioned ideas which Miss Nightingale successfully
combated, did marvellous service by displaying what private enterprise
can do in a national emergency--an emergency with which, in its
suddenness, gravity, and scope, no Government could have hoped to deal
successfully. I must go back to the winter of 1899 to call their great
work to mind. War had already been waging some weeks in South Africa
when the Government's proclamation was issued calling for volunteers
from the yeomanry for active service at the front, and the lightning
response that came to this appeal from all quarters and from all g