you, when you were well, I mean?"

"I don't think much of that sort of judging," said Mrs. Bright,
languidly. "It takes a long time to find out what people really
are,--years."

"Why, mamma!" cried Eyebright, with wide-open eyes. "I couldn't know
but just two or three people in my whole life if I had to take such
lots of time to find out! I'd a great deal rather be quick, even if I
changed my mind afterward."

"You'll be wiser when you're older," said her mother. "It's time for
my medicine now. Will you bring it, Eyebright? It's the third bottle
from the corner of the mantel, and there's a tea-cup and spoon on the
table."

[Illustration: Eyebright fetched the medicine and the cup, and her
mother measured out the dose.--PAGE 61.]

Poor Mrs. Bright! Her medicine had grown to be the chief interest of
her life! The doctor who visited her was one of the old-fashioned kind
who believed in big doses and three pills at a time, and something new
every week or two; but, in addition to his prescriptions, Mrs. Bright
tried all sorts of queer patent physics which people told her of, or
which she read about in the newspapers. She also took a great deal of
herb tea of different sorts. There was always a little porringer of
something steaming away on her stove,--camomile, or boneset, or
wormwood, or snakeroot, or tansy, and always a long row of fat bottles
with labels on the chimney-piece above it.

Eyebright fetched the medicine and the cup, and her mother measured
out the dose.

"I can't help hoping that this is going to do me good," she said.
"It's something new which I read about in the 'Evening Chronicle,'--Dr.
Bright's Cosmopolitan Febrifuge. It seems to work the most wonderful
cures. Mrs. Mulravy, a lady in Pike's Gulch, Idaho, got entirely well
of consumptive cancer by taking only two bottles; and a gentleman from
Alaska writes that his wife and three children, who were almost dead of
cholera collapse and heart-disease, recovered entirely after taking the
Febrifuge one month. It's very wonderful."

"I've noticed that those folks who get well in the advertisements
always live in Idaho and Alaska and such like places, where people
ain't very likely to go a-hunting after them," said Wealthy, who came
in just then with a candle.

"Now, Wealthy, how can you say so! Both these cures are certified to
by regular doctors. Let me see,--yes,--Dr. Ingham and Dr. H. B.
Peters. Here are their names on the bottle!"

"It's easy