“Better!” said the good woman, “I’ll tell you what it is, Miss Patsey, I’ve been a thinking over the matter a deal for the last week, and I’ve been a-trying my appetite, and a-trying my eyes, and a-trying how I could walk about, and work, and sew, and I just tell you what it is, Miss Patsey, I’m well!”

And so it was.  The widow was well, and nobody could see any reason for it, except good Dame Martha herself.  She always persisted that it was those beautiful bunches of flowers that Patsey had brought her every day.

“Oh, Miss Patsey!” she said, “If you’d been a-coming to me with them violets and buttercups, instead of old Hans with his nasty bitter yarbs, I’d a been off that bed many a day ago.  There was nothing but darkness, and the shadows of tomb-stones, and the damp smells of the lonely bogs about his roots and his leaves.  But there was the heavenly sunshine in your flowers, Miss Patsey, and I could smell the sweet fields, when I looked at them, and hear the hum of the bees!”

It may be that Dame Martha gave a little too much credit to Patsey’s flowers, but I am not at all sure about it.  Certain it is, that the daily visits of a bright young girl, with her heart full of kindness and sympathy, and her hands full of flowers from the fragrant fields, would be far more welcome and of far more advantage to many sick chambers than all the old herb-gatherers in the world, with their bitter, grave-yard roots, and their rank, evil-smelling plants that grow down in the swamps among the frogs and snakes.

Perhaps you know some sick person.  Try Patsey’s treatment.

SOME CUNNING INSECTS.

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We hear such wonderful stories about the sense and ingenuity displayed by insects, that we are almost led to the belief that some of them must have a little reason—­at least as much as a few men and women that we know.

Of all, these wise insects, there is none with more intelligence and cunning than the ant.  How many astonishing accounts have we had of these little creatures, who in some countries build great houses, almost large enough for a man to live in; who have a regular form of government, and classes of society—­soldiers, workers, gentlemen and ladies; and who, as some naturalists have declared, even have handsome funerals on the occasion of the death of a queen!  It is certain that they build, and work, and pursue their various occupations according to systems that are wisely conceived and most carefully carried out.

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