angerous malady. Though she was comparatively helpless, her vital
organs were strong, and we never had a moment's uneasiness concerning
her, till one morning when we found her in an almost dying condition
from having taken, as we quickly discovered, a dose of poison,
instead of the soothing mixture which had been left for her with the
nurse. Poison! and no one, not even herself or the nurse, could
explain how the same got into the room, much less into her medicine.
And when I came to study the situation, I found myself as much at loss
as they; indeed, more so; for I knew I had made no mistake in
preparing the mixture, and that, even if I had, this especial poison
could not have found its way into it, owing to the fact that there
neither was nor ever had been a drop of it in my possession.

The mixture, then, was pure when it left my hand, and, according to
the nurse, whom, as I have said, I implicitly believe, it went into
the glass pure. And yet when, two hours later, without her having left
the room or anybody coming into it, she found occasion to administer
the draught, poison was in the cup, and the patient was only saved
from death by the most immediate and energetic measures, not only on
her part, but on that of Dr. Holmes, whom in her haste and
perturbation she had called in from the adjacent house.

The patient, young, innocent, unfortunate, but of a strangely
courageous disposition, betrayed nothing but the utmost surprise at
the peril she had so narrowly escaped. When Dr. Holmes intimated that
perhaps she had been tired of suffering, and had herself found means
of putting the deadly drug into her medicine, she opened her great
gray eyes, with such a look of child-like surprise and reproach, that
he blushed, and murmured some sort of apology.

"Poison myself?" she cried, "when you promise me that I shall get
well? You do not know what a horror I have of dying in debt, or you
would never say that."

This was some time after the critical moment had passed, and there
were in the room Mrs. Dayton, the landlady, Dr. Holmes, the nurse, and
myself. At the utterance of these words we all felt ashamed and cast
looks of increased interest at the poor girl.

She was very lovely. Though without means, and to all appearance
without friends, she possessed in great degree the charm of
winsomeness, and not even her many sufferings, nor the indignation
under which she was then laboring, could quite rob her countenance of