It never would have occurred, if Maria had been allowed to remain here and attend to these duties, which are in her line, and are not in mine."

"Now, Mortimer, I should think you would be ashamed to make a remark like that. It is a pity if you cannot do the few little things I ask of you at such an awful time as this when our child".

"There, there, I will do anything you want. But I can't raise anybody with this bell. They're all gone to bed. Where is the goose-grease?"

"On the mantlepiece in the nursery. If you'll step there and speak to Maria "

I fetched the goose-grease and went to sleep again. Once more I was called:

"Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still too cold for me to try to apply this stuff. Would you mind lighting the fire? It is all ready to touch a match to."

I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat down disconsolate.

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Mortimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold. Come to bed."

As I was stepping in, she said,—

"But wait a moment.

the medicine."

Please give the child some more of

Which I did. It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively; so my wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it all over with the goose-oil. I was soon asleep once more, but once more I had to get up.

Mortimer, I feel a draught. I feel it distinctly. nothing so bad for this disease as a draft.

crib in front of the fire."

There is

Please move the

I did it; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in the fire. Mrs. McWilliams sprang out of bed and rescued it and we had some words. I had another trifling interval of sleep, and then got up, by request, and constructed a flax-seed poultice. This was placed upon the child's breast and left there to do its healing work.

A wood fire is not a permanent thing. I got up every twenty minutes and renewed ours, and this gave Mrs. McWilliams the opportunity to shorten the times of giving the

medicines by ten minutes, which was a great satisfaction to her. Now and then, between times, I re-organised the flaxseed poultices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters where unoccupied places could be found upon the child. Well, toward morning the wood gave out and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and get some more. I said,

66

My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm enough now with her extra clothing. Now, mightn't we put on another layer of poultices and ".

I did not finish, because I was interrupted. I lugged wood up from below for some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only a man can whose strength is all gone and whose soul is worn out. Just at broad daylight I felt a grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly. My wife was glaring down upon me and gasping. As soon as she could command her tongue she said,

"It is all over! All over! The child's perspiring! What shall we do?"

'Mercy, how you terrify me! I don't know what we ought to do. Maybe if we scraped her and put her in the draft again".

"O, idiot! There is not a moment to lose! Go for the doctor. Go yourself. Tell him he must come, dead or alive."

I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him. He looked at the child and said she was not dying. This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront. Then he said the child's cough was only caused by some trifling irritation or other in the throat. At this I thought my wife had a mind to show him the door. Now the doctor said he would make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble. So he gave her something that sent her into a spasm of coughing, and presently up came a little wood splinter or so.

"This child has no membranous croup," said he. "She has been chewing a bit of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some little slivers in her throat. They won't do her any hurt."

'No,” said I, “I can well believe that. Indeed, the turpentine that is in them is very good for certain sorts of disease that are peculiar to children. My wife will tell you so."

But she did not. She turned away in disdain and left the room; and since that time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to. Hence the tide of our days flows by in deep and untroubled serenity.

My Dentist.

(By kind permission of the Author.)

A highly respectable house in a gloomy looking street. The dentist does not live there-probably because his wife and daughters do not like the observations of their visitors to be interrupted by resounding shrieks proceeding at intervals from the back parlour. He occupies only the ground floor, whereof the first room is used as a waiting-room, and the back-room is used-but I must not anticipate.

Upon the first door is a very neat brass-plate, indicating that Mr. Pullemout is a surgeon-dentist. At the side of the door is a bell which by a somewhat hollow piece of pleasantry has the word "Visitors" written on it. You ring this bell, and are at once conscious, first, that at the moment of doing so the pain in that tooth which has been driving you mad for a fortnight has entirely disappeared, and secondly, that the bell responds to your touch with the most aggravating promptitude —that it gives you no decent time for considering whether after all you will not walk on, and look in next Thursday instead. You are just coming out of this reflection, and are beginning to think that perhaps even now you can get round the corner without being seen, when the door opens and you perceive a sepulchral looking man-servant, dressed in a complete suit of black, who surveys you with the air of one who is saying inwardly, "yet another-the fifteenth to-day. Mine is indeed a painful situation."

You ask whether Mr. Pullemout is in-hoping as you never hoped anything before, that Mr. Pullemout is not in-and the man, with the sense of responsibility of one who is the bearer of evil news, assures you that Mr. Pullemout is in and will soon be disengaged. You take out your watch and ask how soon Mr. Pullemout will be disengaged, with the faint hope that you may hinge on this an excuse for escaping. The words have scarcely left your mouth when a loud yell (accom

panied probably by a double tooth), leaves the mouth of a victim at the back of the premises. Whereupon the manservant, with funereal solemnity, assures you that Mr. Pullemout will be free in a very few minutes, and conducts you into the front room.

In this room you find a round table in the middle, with illustrated books and periodicals upon it, and you observe that it is provided with a large number of chairs. No one about to see Mr. Pullemout has ever been known to look at a book or periodical or sit upon a chair, but people who go into the room merely because they have come with someone else for company, and without any intention of having a personal transaction with that gentleman, may be noticed to maintain the most equable spirits, and to devour the literature and make themselves extremely comfortable on the chairs. This is human nature.

You cannot quite make up your mind whether you hope Mr. Pullemout will really be disengaged soon or not, but you rather think you should like him not to be ready for you just yet. You walk up and down the room, and stand at the window occasionally, to glare out savagely at people who are passing unconcernedly by the door, as if there were no such things as dentists, and a fellow-creature were not about to undergo torments. Your reflections are interrupted occasionally by such incidents as the ringing of a bell at the back of the house, followed by the opening of a door and the muffled sound of a voice which appears to be saying in a tone of authority, "Another jug of warm water," followed in turn by a shuffling of feet along the passage, and then the slamming of the same door. But beyond these tragic indications you are

left in the silence of the tomb.

This state of things appears to last many hours-in fact, about fifteen minutes-when the door opens and the sorrowful man-servant enters and informs you that Mr. Pullemout will be "happy" to see you. He says "happy" as if he would like to add, "Poor wretch, I know full well what your sentiments are as to seeing him."

A minute afterwards and you are seated in a most repulsively comfortable chair, with your head thrown back in a convenient position for Mr. Pullemout to cut it off if so dis

posed, and a napkin inserted in your mouth in such wise as to preclude the possibility of any utterance but a despairing gurgle. In this helpless situation Mr. Pullemout attacks your mouth with a complicated steel instrument, which he uses to discover where your nerves are, preparatory to playing on them with another instrument. He asks you at intervals to let him know whether he is hurting you, though well aware that he has deprived you of the power of retorting upon him, and at intervals he refers in a light and pleasing manner to current topics of the day.

If the result of this process is to satisfy Mr. Pullemout that the tooth can be stopped, he operates upon it with more instruments, and brings into requisition an apparatus the properties of which appear to lie somewhere midway between those of a coffee-mill and a sewing-machine. This he works with a treadle, and he fastens the end to something which he guides into the recesses of your hapless tooth. During this process you feel as if large splinters were flying from you, and you tingle down to your feet with a sensation of having somehow become a passive part of a buzzing piece of machinery.

If Mr. Pullemout is of opinion that the molar is past stoppage, he says with an airy smile, "I think we must have this one out," as if he were going halves with you in the operation, instead of its being perfectly obvious that he will be at the harmless end of the forceps, while you are at its business extremity. And then he rings for a jug of warm water with a pretence of indifferenee, as if he wanted it for shaving, or washing his hands, or anything but its real horrid purpose. And then he advances upon you with the forceps, which he ostentatiously affects to conceal up his arm, though you can see the instrument perfectly well all the time. And then he puts a gag in your mouth, which makes you feel as if your upper jaw and your lower jaw would never have anything in common again. And then Mr. Pullemout is ready for action, and during the next few minutes he is engaged in a pleasant and stimulating muscular exercise, in which you can only join effectively, to the extent of kicking out your legs, while your feelings are represented by muffled and gagged observations of a most poignant character.

(From E. F. Turner's "More T Leaves": Smith, Elder & Co.)