And you don't look very well now.

You must take good care of yourself, and if you don't feel well, you must ask your mother to bring you in to me and I will give you a dose of my medicine--my _aqua saccharina_.

I know you always take your medicine like a little heroine when you are sick, without making any difficulty or trouble at all." _Aqua saccharina_ was the Latin name which Delia gave to a preparation of which she kept a supply in a small phial on her table, ready to make-believe give to the dolls when they were sick.

Maria and Jane were very fond of playing that their dolls were sick and bringing them to Della for medicine, especially as Della always recommended to them to taste the medicine themselves from a spoon first, in order to set their children a good example of taking it well.
Sometimes Della would let the children take the phial away, so as to have it always at hand in case the dolls should be taken suddenly worse.

But in such cases as this the attacks were usually so frequent, and the mothers were obliged to do so much tasting to encourage the patients, that the phial was soon brought back nearly or quite empty, when Delia used to replenish it by filling it nearly full of water, and then pouring a sufficient quantity of the saccharine powder into the mouth of it from the sugar-bowl with a spoon.