drugs she had threatened to swallow. With renewed alarm he hurried up stairs to the bed-chamber, and threw open the door. Yes, thank Heaven! there she was, and alive, and without a blotch on her face. But he had yet his minor misgiving. "Ellen, you have been out?" "Well, I know I have." "To the King's Head?" "No, John, no. But no matter. more with my drinking." "What do you mean ?" You'll be troubled no "I mean what I say, John," replied the wife, looking very serious, and speaking very solemnly and deliberately, with a strong emphasis on every word. "You-will-be-troubled -no-more-with-my-drinking-I HAVE TOOK IT AT LAST." "I knew it!" exclaimed the wretched husband, desperately tossing his arms aloft, as when all is lost. "I knew it !"and, leaving one coat flap in the hands of his wife, who vainly attempted to detain him, he rushed from the room—sprang down the stairs, both flights, by two and three stairs at a time-ran along the passage, and without his hat or gloves, or stick, dashed out at the street door, sweeping from the step two ragged little girls, a quartern loaf, a bason of treacle, and a baby. But he never stopped to ask if the children were hurt, or even to see whether the infant dripped with gore or molasses. Away he ran, like a rabid dog, straight forward, down the Borough, heedless alike of porter's load, baker's basket, and butcher's tray. "I say," muttered the errand boy, as he staggered from the collision. "Do that agin," growled the placard man, as he recovered the pole and board which had been knocked from his shoulder. "Mind where you're goin'" bawled a hawker, as he picked up his scattered wares; whilst a dandy, suddenly thrust into the kennel, launched after the runner one of those verbal missiles which are said to return, like the boomerang, to those who launch them. But on, on, on scampered the Teatotaller, heedless of all impediments on he scoured, like a he-Camilla, to the shop, number 240, with the red, blue, and green bottles in the window-the Chemist and Druggist's, into which he darted, and up to the little bald man at the desk, with barely breath enough left to gasp out "My wife !" "Poison !" and "Pump!" "Vegetable or mineral?" inquired the Surgeon-Apothecary, with professional coolness. "Both-all sorts-ladnum-assnick-oxalic acid-cor rosive sublimity"—and the Teatotaller was about to add pine-apple rum amongst the poisons, when the Doctor stopped him. "Is she sick?" But remembering the symptoms overnight, the Teatotaller ventured to say, on the strength of his dream, that she was turning all manner of colours, like a rainbow, and swelling as big as a house. "Then there is not a moment to lose," said the Esculapius, and accordingly clapping on his hat, and arming himself with the necessary apparatus-a sort of elephantine syringe with a very long trunk-he set off at a trot, guided by the Teatotaller, to unpoison the rash and ill-fated bacchanalian, Mrs. Burrage. "And did he save her?" "My dear madam, be content to let that issue remain a little, and accumulate interest, like a sum in the Saving Bank." CHAPTER X. Now, when the Teatotaller, with the medical man at his heels, arrived at his own house, Mrs. Burrage was still in her bed-room; which was a great convenience, for before she could account for the intrusion of the stranger, nay, even without exactly knowing how it was done, she suddenly found herself seated-more zealously than tenderly or ceremoniously -in the easy chair; and when she attempted to expostulate, she felt herself choking with a tube of something, which was certainly neither maccaroni, nor stick-licorice, nor yet pipepeppermint. To account for this precipitancy, the exaggerated representations of her husband must be borne in mind; and if his wife did not exhibit all the dying dolphin-like colours that he had described-if she was not yet quite so blue, green, yellow, or black, as he had painted her, the apothecary made sure that she soon would be, and consequently went to work without delay, where delays were sc dangerous. Mrs. Burrage, however, was not a woman to submit quietly to a disagreeable operation, against her own consent; so with a vigorous kick and a push, at the same time, she contrived to rid herself at once of the doctor and his instrument, and indignantly demanded to know the meaning of the assault upon her. "It's to save your life-your precious life, Ellen," said the Teatotaller, very solemnly. "It's to empty the stomach, ma'am," said the doctor. "Empty a fiddle-" retorted Mrs. B., who would have added "stick," but the doctor, watching his opportunity, had dexterously popped the tube again into her open mouth: not without a fresh scuffle from the patient. "For the Lord's sake, Ellen," entreated the Teatotaller, confining her hand, "do, do, pray do sit quiet." "Pob-wob-wobble," said Ellen. "Hub-bub-bubbubble," attempting to speak with another pipe in her throat besides the windpipe. "Have the goodness, ma'am, to be composed," implored the doctor. "I won't," shouted Mrs. Burrage, having again released herself from the instrument by a desperate struggle. "What am I to be pumped out for?" “Oh, Ellen, Ellen," said the Teatotaller, "you know what have taken." you “Corrosive salts and narcotics," put in the doctor. "Vitriol, prussic acid, and aqua fortis," continued the druggist. "I've took no such thing," said the refractory patient. "Oh Ellen, you know what you said." "Well, what?" "Why, that your drinking should never trouble me any more." "And no more it shall!" screamed the wilful woman, falling, as she spoke, into convulsive paroxysms of the wildest laughter. "No more it shall, for I've took-" 77 REVIEW. LIFE IN THE SICK ROOM. BY AN INVALID. Moxon. Of all the know-nothing persons in this world, commend us to the man who has " never known a day's illness." He is a moral dunce: one who has lost the greatest lesson in life; who has skipped the finest lecture in that great school of humanity, the Sick Chamber. Let him be versed in mathematics, profound in metaphysics, a ripe scholar in the classics, a bachelor of arts, or even a doctor in divinity, yet is he as one of those gentlemen whose education has been neglected. For all his college acquirements, how inferior is he in wholesome knowledge to the mortal who has had but a quarter's gout, or a half-year of ague-how infinitely below the fellow-creature who has been soundly taught his tic douloureux, thoroughly grounded in the rheumatics, and deeply red in the scarlet fever! And yet what is more common than to hear a great hulking, florid fellow, bragging of an ignorance, a brutal ignorance, that he shares in common with the pig and the bullock, the generality of which die, probably, without ever having experienced a day's indisposition. To such a monster of health the volume before us will be a sealed book; for how can he appreciate its allusions to physical suffering, whose bodily annoyance has never reached beyond a slight tickling of the epidermis, or the tingling of a foot gone to sleep? How should he, who has sailed through life with a clean bill of health, be able to sympathise with the feelings, or the quiet sayings and doings, of an Invalid condemned to a life-long quarantine in his chamber? What |