Peggy had suddenly taken leave of her senses, and practical Esther
rushed upstairs to search for a clue to the mystery among the medicine
bellies on Peggy's table. She was absent only for a few minutes; but it
seemed like an hour to the watchers, for Peggy's face grew more and more
agonised, she seemed on the verge of suffocation, and could neither
speak nor endure anyone to approach within yards of her mad career.
Presently, however, she began to falter, to draw her breath in longer
gasps, and as she did so there emerged from her lips a series of loud
whooping sounds, like the crowing of a cock, or the noise made by a
child in the convulsions of whooping-cough. The air was making its way
to the lungs after the temporary stoppage, and the result would have
been comical if any of the hearers had been in a mood for jesting,
which, in good truth, they were not.

"Thank Heaven! She will be better now. Open the window and leave her
alone. Don't try to make her speak. What in the world has the child
been doing?" cried the vicar wonderingly; and at that moment Esther
entered, bearing in her hand the explanation of the mystery--a bottle
labelled "Spirits of Ammonia," and a tumbler about an eighth full of a
white milky-looking fluid.

"They were in the front of the table. The other things had not been
moved. I believe she has never looked at the labels, but seized the
first bottle that came to her hand--this dreadfully strong ammonia which
you gave her for the gnat bites when she first came."

A groan of assent came from the sofa on which Peggy lay, choking no
longer, but ghastly white, and drawing her breath in painful gasps.
Mrs Asplin sniffed at the contents of the tumbler, only to jerk back
her head with watery eyes and reddened lips.

"No wonder that the child was nearly choked! The marvel is that she had
ever regained her breath after such a mistake. Her throat must be raw!"
She hurried out of the room to concoct a soothing draught, at which
Peggy supped at intervals during the evening, croaking out a hoarse,
"Better, thank you!" in reply to inquiries, and looking so small and
pathetic in her nest of cushions that the hearts of the beholders
softened at the sight. Before bedtime, however, she revived
considerably, and, her elastic spirits coming to her aid, entertained
the listeners with a husky but dramatic account of her proceedings. How
she had not troubled to turn the gas full up, and had just seized the