eager for it; good beef-tea or milk and plenty of cold water (unless you are sure that he much prefers the addition of a little fruit juice or barley. I believe that to healthily trained children cold water quite pure is the most palatable drink during this kind of illness). As long as the little creature is pretty comfortable, let it he alone, and be made as little conscious as possible of the presence of any outside object. But if it appears in any way uneasy, some one whom the child loves—the mother, as much as can be conveniently managed—should sit or he down beside it.
During the time that the mother is the child's companion, she must also wait on it herself, should it require attendance. The sudden change of contact from one person to another causes a slight nervous jar, which, though usually imperceptible in a healthy state, is sometimes painful to one whose nerves are, from any cause, in a state of tension. And it is cruel to give this nervous shock during, or just before, any physical movement of a feverish patient.
But what is a mother to do if she happens to be particularly fastidious and refined, and finds the actual work of a sick room not to her taste? Well, I should say, chiefly, she is to thank God for giving her a special means of gaining power over her child's heart. Refinement makes her presence doubly grateful in a sick room. And a mother who goes away from her sick child, because it wants some assistance which she thinks it more fit for a servant to give, is not only injuring the child's health and temper; she is walking down from the pedestal where God has placed her, and ought
