BLANCHE LEARNS WISDOM.
"Oh! really I cannot, cannot take this horrid physic, dearest Madam!" cried Blanche, as soon as she saw her kind friend appear with phial and cup. "Fie, Miss!" said Ruth, and she leant on the back of the young lady's chair, and, in a whisper, besought her to behave with more sense and spirit. Kate kindly took her crying friend's hand, and spoke to her with so much mildness and reason: "My best Blanche, you are very ill, you know you are, and you cannot be better till you have taken something to relieve your fever."—"Oh, but that is such nasty vile stuff!"—"Do not call what will ease your pain by such harsh names: are you not in great pain?"—"Yes, yes, my head aches, and I feel sick, and so ill, so very ill."—"And do you really prefer bearing all this, to a minute's bitter taste of physic in your mouth? Why, Blanche, are you so very foolish?" and Kate smiled as she spoke, and held the cup to her friend. Blanche dashed away the cup, and all the physic was spilt. "What have you done, wayward girl?" cried the Aunt; "this was the only dose proper for you in the house,—and we live so far from the town. Ah! when and where shall I get you some more?" At first, Blanche was glad that the physic was spilt; but when she found herself getting worse, she began to wish she could find some cure for her ailments. The kind Aunt sent all round the village, no one could give her the physic she wanted. It was dark, Ruth could not go alone to the town. The poor man, that had been helped and cured, heard Ruth as she passed through the village speak of her young lady's illness, and he begged to go to the town for the physic. He walked as fast as he could, and came back with the dose the very moment he got it. But how did poor Blanche long for his return! Every minute seemed an hour to her; how gladly she took the mixture which before she had scorned. In a very short time, it soothed and eased her; she fell asleep, and awoke almost well: her first words were: "I hope I never again shall be so very, very childish."