A Grandmother's Recollections

vely spring! again made its appearance. Our flower-garden looked its very loveliest at this season;

n we ran to the peach-trees to look at the delicate pink buds that shot forth so curiously without any leaves. There was a warm sweet breath abroad upon the air that tossed our hair about, and fanned our flushed cheeks, and we knew that it was spring, sweet spring! that had come again to us. Oh, how delightful it was when, escape

hich I thought left me on the very threshold of womanhood, and we had two pet squirrels, who inhabited the locust trees in front of t

the monotonous hum of the locusts, which always filled my heart with a sense of quiet happiness. Did you never sit watching the glorious sunbeams, as they fell on the soft, fresh grass, and with this low, so

home, the locust tree-and I never again sought to entice him from his retreat. I ran about the walks as usual this spring, but it was with languor and indifference that I visited our usual haunts; and I wondered what it was that made my steps so very slow and dragging-it seemed as though a weight were tied on each heel. If I attempted a race with the boys, I was obliged to give up from very weariness; and lau

been for life or death I could not have spoken; I tried to scream-but a hollow sound rattled in my ears-and with the cold drops gathering on my forehead, I lay still, subdued, in a state of delirious agony. I was almost senseless; until at length, feeling a touch upon my arm, and a breathing at my side, I started wildly up, and eluding all pursuit, fled swiftly down the st

to my bedside. But worse and worse! a few paces further off stood a grave-looking man, whom, from his very air, I knew to be a doctor. Nay, had I been at all doubtful on this point, the addition of a pair of spectacles would have convinced me at once-as this is an ornament especially pertaining to M. D.'s. I had always hated, loathed, dreaded a doctor as I would a nauseous object; and I now trembled to find myself in his power-fearing

myself for hours by mounting up on a table before the glass, and with a string tied around a loosened tooth, give it a little cowardly pull at intervals-lacking sufficient courage to rid myself of my trouble at once. I have sometimes sat in this in

angel in comparison with the ogre who, I felt convinced, only waited his opportunity to put an end to my life. Mamma came close to me, and obse

over the thoughts of the pain I must have suffered in my insensibility. I made no reply, but leaned my head droopingly

hed him off, as I would the touch of a viper; and clinging to mamma, I cried

oredly, "are you afraid of me, my lit

able to determine. Dr. Irwin now took my mother aside, and whispered something in a low tone, as he placed a small packet in her hands. I heard my mother say: "I am afraid she will never take it, doctor," to which he replied: "But she must take it, madam-we cannot consider a child's humo

the end of the village, and the next door neighbor, prompted by humanity, sent to inquire the name of the murdered party. The next dose was more successful; mamma having spread out before my eyes all her possessions which she thought likely to tempt me, I recei

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

k 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

d 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

to me. She had various ways of smoothing this disagreeable duty; and one night when I had been rather obstreperous, she cut a pill in two and took half, by way of keeping me company; saying as she swallowed it that "perhaps it might do her some good." When I became well enough to leave my bed I sat in a nice easy-chair drawn close up to

rrived on a visit. "What!" exclaimed she, "can this be the madcap, Amy? Why, you look l

as quite a studious character. Aunt Henshaw remained a week or two; and though not exactly sick, I remained thin and drooping, and seemed to get no stronger as the season advanced. The state of my health was canvassed over and