the past twelve
years I have had at least forty different doctors, and none of them have
helped me."

"But there can be no harm in trying the forty-first;" and as I said
it I took from my vest pocket and held out in the palm of my hand some
pills:

"Here, madame, are some pills made from a simple blossom, which cannot
possibly harm you, and which, I am sure, will do you a great deal of
good."

"O, Mary!" she exclaimed to her niece, who was in attendance upon her,
"this is my dream! I dreamed last night that my father appeared to me
and told me that a stranger would come with a blossom in his hand; that
he would offer it to me, and that if I would take it I should recover.
Go and get a glass of water and I will take these pills at once."

"Surely," said Mary, "you are not going to take this stranger's medicine
without knowing anything about it, or him?"

"I am indeed; go and get the water."

She took the medicine and then told me that her father, who had died two
years ago, was a physician, and had carefully attended to her case as
long as he lived; but that she had a will of her own, and had sent far
and near for other doctors, though with no good result.

"You have come to me," she continued, "and although I am not
superstitious, your coming with a blossom in your hand, figuratively
speaking, is so exactly in accordance with my dream, that I am going to
put myself under your care."

She then asked me if I lived in the neighborhood, and I told her no;
that I had merely come up from Boston with two friends to try a few
days' fishing through the ice on the lake.

"You can fish to better purpose here, I think," she said; "you can get
plenty of practice in the villages and farm houses about here: at any
rate, stay for the present and undertake my case, and I will pay you
liberally."

I went back to Meredith Bridge--I believe it is now called Laconia--and
had another day's fishing with my friends. When they were ready to pack
up and return to Boston, I astonished them by informing them that I
should stay where I was for the present, perhaps for months, and that I
believed I could find a good practice in Meredith and adjoining places.
So they left me and I went to Lake Village, and made that pleasant place
my headquarters.

The weeks wore on, and if Mrs. Blaisdell was a hogshead, as the Meredith
landlord said, when I first saw her, she soon became a barrel under my
treatment, and in four months she was entirel