ST. PATRICK'S DAY.
[TO THE EDITOR OP ME "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I venture to send you two little stories about the shamrock which may interest your readers. Several invalid soldiers from South Africa are in a convalescent home in this neighbourhood, and among them is one of the Inniskilling Fusiliers; so I was very anxious they should each have a bit of shamrock for St. Patrick's Day, and asked an old Irish- woman to try to get me some. She tried in every direction, but none of the real plant was to be found till she caught sight of one precious plant in a cottage window. She was quite a stranger to the inmates, but she knocked at the door, and with many apologies asked if they would sell her a spray. " Sell my shamrock ? No, indeed, I can't cut a bit of it," said the owner.—" Well, I beg your pardon, Sir ; but as it's for those poor soldiers up on the Down, I ventured to ask —"—" For the soldiers, did you say? Here, take it, take it; they may have it all," thrusting the pot into her hands.—" And what's to pay, Sir ?"—" Nothing at all ; if it's for soldiers, they're welcome to it." The same woman, who is the daughter of one soldier and the widow of another, has an only son in the Coldstream Guards who was severely wounded at Modder River. He was expected to arrive at our convalescent home this week, and last Tuesday she went to the railway station, hearing that some soldiers were arriving. Her son was not among them ; but she found two men, on their way to Ireland, who were waiting for a train to take them on to Milford. One had been severely wounded in the bead, and the other soldier was charged to see him safely home. My warm-hearted Irish friend carried them off to her little home (only one room) and fed them with the tea and eggs she had prepared for her own boy. "And they were so happy," she told me, "and said it was just like home, and when they were going away the poor fellow whose head was so bad that his memory is going said : Good-bye, mother, and thank you for that good cup of tea, and as soon as I get home I'll be sure to send you a bit of the real Irish shamrock.'" He was true to his word, for a little box of shamrock came by post yesterday, and I am glad to say the long-expected son
arrived to-day.—I am, Sir, &c., A. E. H. Bath.
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