Ann Dovey received the pair of babies, and sat down in the low chair. Taking the candle, Mrs. Reed ran up to the room where the elder children slept. The house was better furnished than cottages generally are, and the rooms were of a fairly good size. Opposite the bed stood a high deal press with a flat top to it, which Mrs. Reed made a shelf of, for keeping things that must be out of the children's reach. Stepping on a chair, she put her hand out for the box of pills, which stood in its usual place near the corner, and went downstairs with it. It was an ordinary pasteboard pill-box, containing a few pills--six or seven, perhaps. Mrs. Dovey, curious in all matters, lifted the lid and sniffed at the pills. Hester Reed was getting the moist sugar they were to be administered in. "What did you have these here pills for?" questioned Ann Dovey, as Mrs. Reed came back with the sugar. "They bain't over big." "For headache and pain in the side. I asked old Abel Crew if he could give me something for it, and he gave me these pills." Mrs. Reed was moistening a teaspoonful of the sugar, as she spoke, with warm water. Taking out one of the pills she proceeded to crush it into small bits, and then mixed it with the sugar. It formed a sort of paste. Dose the first. "That ain't moist enough, Hester Reed," pronounced Mrs. Dovey, critically. "No? I'll put a drop more warm water." The water was added, and one of the children was fed with the delectable compound--Hetty. Mrs. Dovey spoke again. "Is it all for her? Won't a whole pill be too much for one, d'ye think?" "Not a bit. When I asked old Abel whether one pill would be too much for Georgy, he said, No--two wouldn't hurt him. I tell ye, Ann Dovey, the pills be as mild as milk." Hetty took in the whole dose by degrees. Susy had a similar one made ready, and swallowed it in her turn. Then the two babies were conveyed upstairs and put to bed side by side in their mother's room. Mrs. Dovey, the ceremony being over, took her departure. George Reed came in to his early supper, and soon afterwards he and his wife went up to bed. Men who have to be up at five in the morning must go to rest betimes. The fire and candle were put out, the doors locked, and the cottage was steeped in quietness at a time when in larger houses the evening was not much more than beginning. How long she slept, Mrs. Reed could not tell. Whether it might be the first part of the night, early or late, or whether morning might be close upon the dawn, she knew not; but she was startled out of her sleep by the cries of the babies. Awful cries, they seemed, coming from children so young; and there could be no mistaking that each was in terrible agony. "Why, it's convulsions!" exclaimed George Reed, when he had lighted a candle. "Both of them, too!"