I am not going to speak another word--I am a perfect lamb--I will bathe your head with cologne, and put you to sleep nicely." Stepping across the room, as she thought, very softly, but making more noise than Edith would in a week, she seized a bottle of cologne, and coming close to the bedside, bent over me, so that her great, black eyes almost touched mine.

Had they been a pair of pistols, I could not have recoiled with greater terror.
"Don't!" again I murmured,--"I am very weak." "Hush! I am going to put you to sleep." Pouring the cologne in her hand, till it dripped all over the counterpane and pillow, she deluged my hair, and patted my forehead as she would a colt's that she wanted to stand still.

In mute despair I submitted to her _tender mercies_, certain I should die, if some one did not come to my relief, when the door softly opened, and Mrs.Linwood entered.
"Heaven be praised," thought I,--I had not strength to say it.

Tears of weariness and vexation were mingling with the drops with which she had saturated my hair.
"Margaret," said Mrs.Linwood, in a tone of serious displeasure, "what have you been doing?
I left her in a sweet sleep, and now I find her wan, tearful, and agitated.

You will worry her into a relapse." "All she needs now is cheerful company, I am sure," she answered demurely; "you all make her so tender and baby-like, she never will have any strength again.