tidiest way. There was nothing remarkable in that, and I
was just going away on tiptoe, when a tiny bottle and wine-glass on the
chair by her bedside caught my eye. I thought she was ill and had been
taking physic, and looked at the bottle. It was marked in large letters,
"Laudanum--Poison."

My heart gave a jump as if it was going to fly out of me. I laid hold of
her with both hands, and shook her with all my might. She was sleeping
heavily, and woke slowly, as it seemed to me--but still she did wake.
I tried to pull her out of bed, having heard that people ought to
be always walked up and down when they have taken laudanum but she
resisted, and pushed me away violently.

"Anne!" says she, in a fright. "For gracious sake, what's come to you!
Are you out of your senses?"

"Oh, Mary! Mary!" says I, holding up the bottle before her, "if I hadn't
come in when I did--" And I laid hold of her to shake her again.

She looked puzzled at me for a moment--then smiled (the first time I had
seen her do so for many a long day)--then put her arms round my neck.

"Don't be frightened about me, Anne," she says; "I am not worth it, and
there is no need."

"No need!" says I, out of breath--"no need, when the bottle has got
Poison marked on it!"

"Poison, dear, if you take it all," says Mary, looking at me very
tenderly, "and a night's rest if you only take a little."

I watched her for a moment, doubtful whether I ought to believe what she
said or to alarm the house. But there was no sleepiness now in her eyes,
and nothing drowsy in her voice; and she sat up in bed quite easily,
without anything to support her.

"You have given me a dreadful fright, Mary," says I, sitting down by
her in the chair, and beginning by this time to feel rather faint after
being startled so.

She jumped out of bed to get me a drop of water, and kissed me, and said
how sorry she was, and how undeserving of so much interest being taken
in her. At the same time, she tried to possess herself of the laudanum
bottle which I still kept cuddled up tight in my own hands.

"No," says I. "You have got into a low-spirited, despairing way. I won't
trust you with it."

"I am afraid I can't do without it," says Mary, in her usual quiet,
hopeless voice. "What with work that I can't get through as I ought, and
troubles that I can't help thinking of, sleep won't come to me unless I
take a few drops out of that bottle. Don't keep it away from me, Anne;
it's the o