d in one of these it seemed borne in upon
me that this hateful remedy was the salvation of Armand. Louise, the
skin was so dry, so rough and parched, that the ointment would not act.
Then I broke into weeping, and my tears fell so long and so fast, that
the bedside was wet through. And the doctors were at dinner!

Seeing myself alone with the child, I stripped him of all medical
appliances, and seizing him like a mad woman, pressed him to my bosom,
laying my forehead against his, and beseeching God to grant him the life
which I was striving to pass into his veins from mine. For some minutes
I held him thus, longing to die with him, so that neither life nor death
might part us. Dear, I felt the limbs relaxing; the writhings ceased,
the child stirred, and the ghastly, corpselike tints faded away! I
screamed, just as I did when he was taken ill; the doctors hurried up,
and I pointed to Armand.

"He is saved!" exclaimed the oldest of them.

What music in those words! The gates of heaven opened! And, in fact, two
hours later Armand came back to life; but I was utterly crushed, and it
was only the healing power of joy which saved me from a serious illness.
My God! by what tortures do you bind a mother to her child! To fasten
him to our heart, need the nails be driven into the very quick? Was
I not mother enough before? I, who wept tears of joy over his broken
syllables and tottering steps, who spent hours together planning how
best to perform my duty, and fit myself for the sweet post of mother?
Why these horrors, these ghastly scenes, for a mother who already
idolized her child?

As I write, our little Armand is playing, shouting, laughing. What can
be the cause of this terrible disease with children? Vainly do I try to
puzzle it out, remembering that I am again with child. Is it teething?
Is it some peculiar process in the brain? Is there something wrong with
the nervous system of children who are subject to convulsions? All these
thoughts disquiet me, in view alike of the present and the future.
Our country doctor holds to the theory of nervous trouble produced by
teething. I would give every tooth in my head to see little Armand's all
through. The sight of one of those little white pearls peeping out of
the swollen gum brings a cold sweat over me now. The heroism with which
the little angel bore his sufferings proves to me that he will be his
mother's son. A look from him goes to my very heart.

Medical science can g