“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed the dwarfs, for they are good-humoured little folk, and do not mind a tumble.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Amelia, for she had fallen with her fingers on a four-leaved clover.

She put it behind her back, for the old tinker dwarf was coming up to her, wiping the mud from his face with his leathern apron.

“Now for our dance!” he shrieked.  “And I have made up my mind—­partners now and partners always.  You are incomparable.  For three hundred years I have not met with your equal.”

But Amelia held the four-leaved clover above her head, and cried from her very heart—­“I want to go home!”

The dwarf gave a hideous yell of disappointment, and at this instant the stock came tumbling head over heels into the midst, crying—­“Oh! the pills, the powders, and the draughts! oh, the lotions and embrocations! oh, the blisters, the poultices, and the plasters! men may well be so short-lived!”

And Amelia found herself in bed in her own home.

AT HOME AGAIN.

By the side of Amelia’s bed stood a little table, on which were so many big bottles of medicine, that Amelia smiled to think of all the stock must have had to swallow during the month past.  There was an open Bible on it too, in which Amelia’s mother was reading, whilst tears trickled slowly down her pale cheeks.  The poor lady looked so thin and ill, so worn with sorrow and watching, that Amelia’s heart smote her, as if some one had given her a sharp blow.

“Mamma, Mamma!  Mother, my dear, dear Mother!”

The tender, humble, loving tone of voice was so unlike Amelia’s old imperious snarl, that her mother hardly recognized it; and when she saw Amelia’s eyes full of intelligence instead of the delirium of fever, and that (though older and thinner and rather pale) she looked wonderfully well, the poor worn-out lady could hardly restrain herself from falling into hysterics for very joy.

“Dear Mamma, I want to tell you all about it,” said Amelia, kissing the kind hand that stroked her brow.

But it appeared that the doctor had forbidden conversation; and though Amelia knew it would do her no harm, she yielded to her mother’s wish and lay still and silent.

“Now, my love, it is time to take your medicine.”

But Amelia pleaded—­“Oh, Mamma, indeed I don’t want any medicine.  I am quite well, and would like to get up.”

“Ah, my dear child!” cried her mother, “what I have suffered in inducing you to take your medicine, and yet see what good it has done you.”

“I hope you will never suffer any more from my wilfulness,” said Amelia; and she swallowed two tablespoonfuls of a mixture labelled “To be well shaken before taken,” without even a wry face.

Presently the doctor came.

“You’re not so very angry at the sight of me to-day, my little lady, eh?” he said.