“I have not seen you for a long time,” said Amelia; “but I know you have been here, attending a stock who looked like me.  If your eyes had been touched with fairy ointment, however, you would have been aware that it was a fairy imp, and a very ugly one, covered with hair.  I have been living in terror lest it should go back underground in the shape of a black cat.  However, thanks to the four-leaved clover, and the old woman of the heath, I am at home again.”

On hearing this rhodomontade, Amelia’s mother burst into tears, for she thought the poor child was still raving with fever.  But the doctor smiled pleasantly, and said—­“Ay, ay, to be sure,” with a little nod, as one should say, “We know all about it;” and laid two fingers in a casual manner on Amelia’s wrist.

“But she is wonderfully better, madam,” he said afterwards to her mamma; “the brain has been severely tried, but she is marvellously improved:  in fact, it is an effort of nature, a most favourable effort, and we can but assist the rally; we will change the medicine.”  Which he did, and very wisely assisted nature with a bottle of pure water flavoured with tincture of roses.

“And it was so very kind of him to give me his directions in poetry,” said Amelia’s mamma; “for I told him my memory, which is never good, seemed going completely, from anxiety, and if I had done anything wrong just now, I should never have forgiven myself.  And I always found poetry easier to remember than prose,”—­which puzzled everybody, the doctor included, till it appeared that she had ingeniously discovered a rhyme in his orders—­

     ’To be kept cool and quiet,
     With light nourishing diet.’

Under which treatment Amelia was soon pronounced to be well.

She made another attempt to relate her adventures, but she found that not even Nurse would believe in them.

“Why you told me yourself I might meet with the fairies,” said Amelia, reproachfully.

“So I did, my dear,” Nurse replied, “and they say that it’s that put it into your head.  And I’m sure what you say about the dwarfs and all is as good as a printed book, though you can’t think that ever I would have let any dirty clothes store up like that, let alone your frocks, my dear.  But for pity’s sake, Miss Amelia, don’t go on about it to your mother, for she thinks you’ll never get your senses right again, and she has fretted enough about you, poor lady; and nursed you night and day till she is nigh worn out.  And anybody can see you’ve been ill, Miss, you’ve grown so, and look paler and older like.  Well, to be sure, as you say, if you’d been washing and working for a month in a place without a bit of sun, or a bed to lie on, and scraps to eat, it would be enough to do it; and many’s the poor child that has to, and gets worn and old before her time.  But, my dear, whatever you think, give in to your mother; you’ll never repent giving in to your mother, my dear, the longest day you live.”