lowing a spoonful of calomel jalap. I
further displayed my gentleness by biting Dr. Irwin's fingers when he
attempted to look at my throat, and the good man evidently regarded me
as a pretty refractory patient.

I always had a great horror of being sick--that is, a real, regular fit
of sickness, where you are perched up in bed, and have to do as other
people please, and have only just what covering they please--when you
are not suffered to put an arm out, or toss off a quilt that almost
smothers you, or drink a drop of cold water. Once in a while, I thought,
to be just sufficiently sick to sit in the easy chair and look over
mother's pretty things, or daub with her color-box, while people brought
me oranges and waited upon me, did very well. I was not a gentle, timid,
feminine sort of a child, as I have said before--one who would faint at
the prick of a pin, or weep showers of tears for a slight headache; I
was a complete little hoyden, full of life and spirits, to whom the idea
of being in bed in the day-time was extremely disagreeable--and when I
had been "awful," according to the nursery phraseology, the greatest
punishment that could be inflicted upon me was to send me thither to
enjoy the charms of solitude. I was a female edition of my brother
Fred; not quite so prone to tricks and mischief, perhaps--but almost as
wild and unmanageable.

Now and then Fred would come down in the morning pale, sick, and
subdued-looking; his head tightly bound with a handkerchief, and his
whole countenance expressive of suffering. A sick headache was the only
thing that could tame him; and a smile of ineffable relief sat on the
faces of the others as they glanced at his woe-begone visage. He was as
secure for that day as though chained hand and foot. My quiet hours were
when some fascinating book engrossed my whole attention; I drank in each
word, and could neither see nor hear anything around.

But here I was, really sick and quiet, ill in bed for a whole
month--day-time and all; and oh! the nauseous doses that somehow slipped
down my unwilling throat! Sometimes I would lie and watch the others
moving around and doing as they chose, and then, feeling galled by my
own sense of dependence and inefficiency, the warm blood would glow
quickly as before, and springing hastily up, I determined to throw off
this weary feeling of lassitude. But it was of no use; all I could do
was to sink back exhausted, and "bide my time."

When the fir