"For mercy's sake, keep quiet," said the wife, the glad tears gushing over her face. "You have been very ill; there, there, now!" And she spoke soothingly. "Don't say a word, but lie very still." "But my head! What's the matter with my head? It feels as if scalded. Where's my hair? Heavens and earth! Sarah, I don't understand this. And my arm? What's my arm tied up in this way for?" "Be quiet, my dear husband, and I'll explain it all. Oh, be very quiet; your life depends upon it." Mr. H-- sank back upon the pillow from which he had arisen, and closed his eyes to think. He put his hand to his head, and felt it, tenderly, all over, from temple to temple, and from nape to forehead. "Is it a blister?" he at length asked. "Yes, dear. You have been very ill; we feared for your life," said Mrs. H--, affectionately; "there have been two physicians in attendance." H-- closed his eyes again; his lips moved. Those nearest were not much edified by the whispered words that issued therefrom. They would have sounded very strangely in a church, or to ears polite and refined. After this, he lay for some time quiet. "Threatened with apoplexy, I suppose?" he then said, interrogatively. "Yes, dear," replied his wife. "I found you lying insensible upon the floor, on happening to come into your room. It was most providential that I discovered you when I did, or you would certainly have died." H-- shut his eyes and muttered something, with an air of impatience; but its meaning was not understood. Finding him out of danger, friends and relatives retired, and the sick man was left alone with his family. "Sarah," he said, "why, in the name of goodness, did you permit the doctors to butcher me in this way? I'm laid up for a week or two, and all for nothing." "It was to save your life, dear." "Save the--!" "H-u-s-h! There! do, for mercy's sake, be quiet; every thing depends upon it." With a gesture of impatience, H-- shut his eyes, teeth, and hands, and lay perfectly still for some minutes. Then he turned his face to the wall, muttering in a low, petulant voice--"Too bad! too bad! too bad!" I had not erred in my first and my last impressions of H--'s disease, neither had Dr. S-- although he used a very extraordinary mode of treatment. The facts of the case were these: H-- had a weakness; he could not taste wine nor strong drink without being tempted into excess. Both himself and friends were mortified and grieved at this; and they, by admonition, and he, by good resolutions, tried to bring about a reform; but to see was to taste, to taste was to fall. At last, his friends urged him to shut himself up at home for a certain time, and see if total abstinence would not give him strength. He got on pretty well for a few days, particularly so, as his coachman kept a well-filled bottle for him in the carriage-house, to which he not unfrequently resorted; but a too ardent devotion to this bottle brought on the supposed apoplexy.