"No, sir; very, very pleasant, and I'll do my best to be a good patient. But I really don't think any one _could_ be sick in this delightful room," she said, with a long sigh of happiness as her eye went from one pleasant object to another. "Then you like my sort of medicine better than Aunt Myra's, and don't want to throw it out of the window, hey?" CHAPTER VII. _A TRIP TO CHINA._ "COME, little girl, I've got another dose for you. I fancy you won't take it as well as you did the last, but you will like it better after a while," said Dr. Alec, about a week after the grand surprise. Rose was sitting in her pretty room, where she would gladly have spent all her time if it had been allowed; but she looked up with a smile, for she had ceased to fear her uncle's remedies, and was always ready to try a new one. The last had been a set of light gardening tools, with which she had helped him put the flower-beds in order, learning all sorts of new and pleasant things about the plants as she worked, for, though she had studied botany at school, it seemed very dry stuff compared with Uncle Alec's lively lesson. "What is it now?" she asked, shutting her work-box without a murmur. "Salt-water." "How must I take it?" "Put on the new suit Miss Hemming sent home yesterday, and come down to the beach; then I'll show you." "Yes, sir," answered Rose obediently, adding to herself, with a shiver, as he went off: "It is too early for bathing, so I _know_ it is something to do with a dreadful boat." Putting on the new suit of blue flannel, prettily trimmed with white, and the little sailor-hat with long streamers, diverted her mind from the approaching trial, till a shrill whistle reminded her that her uncle was waiting. Away she ran through the garden, down the sandy path, out upon the strip of beach that belonged to the house, and here she found Dr. Alec busy with a slender red and white boat that lay rocking on the rising tide. "That is a dear little boat; and 'Bonnie Belle' is a pretty name," she said, trying not to show how nervous she felt. "It is for you; so sit in the stern and learn to steer, till you are ready to learn to row." "Do all boats wiggle about in that way?" she asked, lingering as if to tie her hat more firmly. "Oh, yes, pitch about like nut-shells when the sea is a bit rough," answered her sailor uncle, never guessing her secret woe. "Is it rough to-day?" "Not very; it looks a trifle squally to the eastward, but we are all right till the wind changes. Come." "Can you swim, uncle?" asked Rose, clutching at his arm as he took her hand. "Like a fish. Now then." [Illustration: "SUPPOSE WE GO TO CHINA."--Page 74] "Oh, please hold me _very_ tight till I get there! Why _do_ you have the stern so far away?" and, stifling several squeaks of alarm in her passage, Rose crept to the distant seat, and sat there holding on with both hands and looking as if she expected every wave to bring a sudden shipwreck.