words, that I could not see that we had been living such an abandoned life.

"Mortimer!" Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby,

too!"

Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed: "The doctor must have sent medicines!"

I said:

66

Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to give me a chance."

"Well, do give them to me!

Don't you know that every moment is precious now? But what was the use in sending medicines, when he knows that the disease is incurable?"

I said that while there was life there was hope.

"Hope! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than the child unborn. If you would. As I live, the directions say, give one teaspoonful once an hour! Once an hour!—as if we had a whole year before us to save the child in! Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poor perishing thing a tablespoonful, and try to be quick!”

"Why, my dear, a tablespoonful might "

.

"Don't drive me frantic! There, there, there! my precious, my own; it's nasty bitter stuff, but it's good for Nelly -good for Mother's precious darling; and it will make her well. There, there, there! put the little head on Mamma's breast and go to sleep, and pretty soon-oh, I know she can't live till morning Mortimer, a tablespoonful every half hour will. Oh, the child needs belladonna too; I know she does-and aconite. Get them, Mortimer. Now, do let me have my way. You know nothing about these things."

We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife's pillow. All this turmoil had worn upon me, and within two minutes I was something more than half asleep. Mrs. McWilliams roused me: "Darling, is that register turned on?"

"No."

"I thought as much. Please turn it on at once. The room

is cold."

I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again. I was aroused

once more:

"Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of the bed? It is nearer the register."

I moved it, but had a collision with the rug and woke up the child. I dozed off once more, while my wife quieted the sufferer. But in a little while these words came murmuring remotely through the fog of my drowsiness:

"Mortimer, if we only had some goose-grease—will you ring?" I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, which responded with a protest, and would have got a convincing kick for it if a chair had not got it instead.

"Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and wake up the child again?"

"Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline."

"Well, look at the chair, too-I have no doubt it is ruined. Poor cat, suppose you had-”

"Now I am not going to suppose anything about the cat. 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 mantel-piece 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.

"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.

medicine."

Please give the child some more of the

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 draft. I feel it nothing so bad for this disease as a draft. in front of the fire."

distinctly. There is

Please move the crib

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 reorganized the flax seed poultices, and applied sin

apisms and

other sorts

of blisters

where unoc

cupied places

KINDLING THE FIRE.

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:

"My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm enough, 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.

A NEW KIND OF CROUP.

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 membraneous croup," said he. "She has been chew

ing 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 diseases 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.

[Very few married men have such an experience as McWilliams's, and so the author of this book thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it a passing interest to the reader.]

MISS MALONY ON THE CHINESE QUESTION.

BY MARY MAPES DODGE.

RS. MARY MAPES DODGE, who was born at New York in 1838, is the editor of the St. Nicholas magazine, and is the author of many delightful books for young people published during the last twenty-five years.

ОCH! don't be talkin'. Is it howld on, ye say? An' didn't I howld on till the heart of me was clane broke entirely, and me wastin' that thin you could clutch me wid yer two hands! To think o' me toilin' like

a nager for the six year I've been in Amerikybad luck to the day I iver left the owld counthry, to be bate by the likes o' them! (faix an' I'll sit down when I'm ready, so I will, Ann Ryan, an' ye'd better be list'nin' than drawin' your remarks) an' it's mysel', with five good characters from respectable places, would be herdin' wid the haythens. The saints forgive me, but I'd be buried alive soon'n put up wid it a day longer. Sure an' I was a grane

FING WING.

horn not to be lavin' at 'onct when the missus kim into me kitchen wid her perlaver about the new waiter-man which was brought out from Californy.

"He'll be here the night," says she, "and Kitty, it's meself looks to you to be kind and patient wid him, for he's a furriner," says she, a kind o' looking off. "Sure an' it's little I'll hinder nor interfare wid him nor any other, mum," says I, a kind o'