Hold my hand, little Sister, and nurse my head, whilst I try to remember the word, What was it?--that the doctor says is now fairly established both in me and my bird. C-O-N-_con_, _with a con_, S-T-A-N-_stan_, _with a stan_--No! That's Constantinople, that is The capital of the country where rhubarb-and-magnesia comes from, and I wish they would keep it in that country, and not send it to this. C-O-N-_con_--how my head swims! Now I've got it! C-O-N-V-A-L-E-S-C-E-N-C-E. _Convalescence!_ And that's what the doctor says is now fairly established both in my blackbird and me. He says it means that you are better, and that you'll be well by and by. And so the Sea-captain says, and he says we ought to be friends, because we're both convalescents--at least we're all three convalescents, my blackbird, and the Captain and I. He's a sea-captain, not a land-captain, but, all the same, he was in the war, And he fought,--for I asked him,--and he's been ill ever since, and that's why he's not afloat, but ashore; And why somebody else has got his ship; and she behaved so beautifully in the battle, and he loves her quite as much as his wife, and rather better than the rest of his relations, for I asked him; and now he's afraid she will never belong to him any more. I like him. I've seen him three times out walking with two sticks, when I was driving in the bath-chair, but I never talked to him till to-day. He'd only one stick and a telescope, and he let me look through it at the big ship that was coming round the corner into the bay. He was very kind, and let me ask questions. I said, "Are you a sea-captain?" and he said, "Yes." And I said, "How funny it is about land things and sea things! There are captains and sea-captains, and weeds and sea-weeds, and serpents and sea-serpents. Did you ever meet one, and is it really like the dragons on our very old best blue tea-things?" But he never did. So I asked him, "Have you got convalescence? Does your doctor say it is fairly established? Do your eyes ache if you try to read, and your neck if you draw, and your back if you sit up, and your head if you talk? Don't you get tired of doing nothing, and worse tired still if you do anything; and does everything wobble about when you walk? Wouldn't you rather go back to bed? I think I would. Don't you wish you were well? Wouldn't you rather be ill than only better? I do hate convalescence, don't you?" Then I stopped asking, and he shut up his telescope, and sat down on