When I again opened my eyes, it was about midnight.  I had been conveyed to my mother’s room, and now experienced the delightful sensation of finding myself in a high bed, with curtains; while my head was raised up with pillows to an unusual height.  In turning myself to obtain a better view of the surrounding scenery, I became conscious of a stiffness in my right arm; and fairly shuddered with horror on perceiving a basin of blood close 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 that he read my dislike in my face.  Spectacles, too, disconcerted me; the glimmer of the polished glass seems to add new fire to the eyes beneath; and I now beheld a pair, eyes and all, levelled directly upon me.  I shuddered at the very idea of a doctor, and could never sit still in the room with one; and now there stood that horrid man, evidently regarding me as his victim, while I felt too weak and sick to make the least resistance.

My aversion probably arose from the circumstance of once having had a loose front tooth pulled out—­one that was just ready to jump out itself; which operation, I felt convinced, had left my system in a very shattered state.  Often since did I torture 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 interesting position for a whole morning; and should probably have continued it through the afternoon had not Fred, or Henry, perceiving my employment, come slyly behind me and caused me to start suddenly, which always dislodged the troublesome tooth.

My eyes rested a moment on the doctor, and then glanced off to seek some more agreeable object, and having found mamma, she seemed like a lovely 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 observing my gaze still bent upon the basin, she whispered softly:  “Do not look so frightened, Amy, you have only been bled—­that is all, believe me.”

All!  After this announcement I wondered that I breathed at all; and had I not been too weak should certainly have cried over the thoughts of the pain I must have suffered in my insensibility.  I made no reply, but leaned my head droopingly upon the pillow; and Dr. Irwin, taking my hand, observed:  “She is very weak, and we may expect delirium before morning.”

His first assertion received the lie direct in the strength with which I pushed him off, as I would the touch of a viper; and clinging to mamma, I cried:  “Take him away, dear mother!  Take him away!—­Do not let him come near us!”