r Mamma, I want to tell you all about it," said Amelia, kissing the
kind hand that stroked her brow.

But it appeared that the doctor had forbidden conversation; and though
Amelia knew it would do her no harm, she yielded to her mother's wish
and lay still and silent.

"Now, my love, it is time to take your medicine."

But Amelia pleaded--"Oh, Mamma, indeed I don't want any medicine. I am
quite well, and would like to get up."

"Ah, my dear child!" cried her mother, "what I have suffered in
inducing you to take your medicine, and yet see what good it has done
you."

"I hope you will never suffer any more from my wilfulness," said
Amelia; and she swallowed two tablespoonfuls of a mixture labelled "To
be well shaken before taken," without even a wry face.

Presently the doctor came.

"You're not so very angry at the sight of me to-day, my little lady,
eh?" he said.

"I have not seen you for a long time," said Amelia; "but I know you
have been here, attending a stock who looked like me. If your eyes had
been touched with fairy ointment, however, you would have been aware
that it was a fairy imp, and a very ugly one, covered with hair. I have
been living in terror lest it should go back underground in the shape
of a black cat. However, thanks to the four-leaved clover, and the old
woman of the heath, I am at home again."

On hearing this rhodomontade, Amelia's mother burst into tears, for she
thought the poor child was still raving with fever. But the doctor
smiled pleasantly, and said--"Ay, ay, to be sure," with a little nod,
as one should say, "We know all about it;" and laid two fingers in a
casual manner on Amelia's wrist.

"But she is wonderfully better, madam," he said afterwards to her
mamma; "the brain has been severely tried, but she is marvellously
improved: in fact, it is an effort of nature, a most favourable effort,
and we can but assist the rally; we will change the medicine." Which he
did, and very wisely assisted nature with a bottle of pure water
flavoured with tincture of roses.

"And it was so very kind of him to give me his directions in poetry,"
said Amelia's mamma; "for I told him my memory, which is never good,
seemed going completely, from anxiety, and if I had done anything wrong
just now, I should never have forgiven myself. And I always found
poetry easier to remember than prose,"--which puzzled everybody, the
doctor included, till it appeared that she had ingeniously discovered a
r