Long after my general health was pretty well restored, I suffered from the effect of the fever in my limbs, and lay in bed reading several weeks after I had been pronounced convalescent.  Several American novels were brought me.  Mr. Flint’s Francis Berrian is excellent; a little wild and romantic, but containing scenes of first-rate interest and pathos.  Hope Leslie, and Redwood, by Miss Sedgewick, an American lady, have both great merit; and I now first read the whole of Mr. Cooper’s novels.  By the time these American studies were completed, I never closed my eyes without seeing myriads of bloody scalps floating round me; long slender figures of Red Indians crept through my dreams with noiseless tread; panthers flared; forests blazed; and which ever way I fled, a light foot, a keen eye, and a long rifle were sure to be on my trail.  An additional ounce of calomel hardly sufficed to neutralize the effect of these raw-head and bloody-bones adventures.  I was advised to plunge immediately into a course of fashionable novels.  It was a great relief to me; but as my head was by no means very clear, I sometimes jumbled strangely together the civilized rogues and assassins of Mr. Bulwer, and the wild men, women, and children slayers of Mr. Cooper; and, truly, between them, I passed my dreams in very bad company.

Still I could not stand, nor even sit upright.  What was I to read next?  A happy thought struck me.  I determined upon beginning with Waverley, and reading through (not for the first time certainly) the whole series.  And what a world did I enter upon!  The wholesome vigour of every page seemed to communicate itself to my nerves; I ceased to be languid and fretful, and though still a cripple, I certainly enjoyed myself most completely, as long as my treat lasted; but this was a shorter time than any one would believe, who has not found how such volumes melt, before the constant reading of a long idle day.  When it was over, however, I had the pleasure of finding that I could walk half a dozen yards at a time, and take short airings in an open carriage; and better still, could sleep quietly.

It was no very agreeable conviction which greeted my recovery, that our Cincinnati speculation for my son would in no way answer our expectation; and very soon after, he was again seized with the bilious fever of the country, which terminated in that most distressing of all maladies, an ague.  I never witnessed is effects before, and therefore made my self extremely miserable at what those around me considered of no consequence.

I believe this frightful complaint is not immediately dangerous; but I never can believe that the violent and sudden prostration of strength, the dreadfully convulsive movements which distort the limbs, the livid hue that spreads itself over the complexion, can take place without shaking the seat of health and life.  Repeatedly we thought the malady cured, and for a few days the poor sufferer believed himself