Then, turning to Jane, she asked, in a somewhat altered tone, "Has she been
a good girl, Jane?"

"She has been a _pretty_ good girl," said Jane, "but she has been sick."

"Ah!" said Della in a tone of great concern, and looking again at Andella,
"I heard that you had been sick. I heard that you had an attack of Aurora
Borealis, or something like that. And you don't look very well now. You
must take good care of yourself, and if you don't feel well, you must
ask your mother to bring you in to me and I will give you a dose of my
medicine--my _aqua saccharina_. I know you always take your medicine like a
little heroine when you are sick, without making any difficulty or trouble
at all."

_Aqua saccharina_ was the Latin name which Delia gave to a preparation
of which she kept a supply in a small phial on her table, ready to
make-believe give to the dolls when they were sick. Maria and Jane were
very fond of playing that their dolls were sick and bringing them to Della
for medicine, especially as Della always recommended to them to taste the
medicine themselves from a spoon first, in order to set their children a
good example of taking it well.

Sometimes Della would let the children take the phial away, so as to have
it always at hand in case the dolls should be taken suddenly worse. But in
such cases as this the attacks were usually so frequent, and the mothers
were obliged to do so much tasting to encourage the patients, that the
phial was soon brought back nearly or quite empty, when Delia used to
replenish it by filling it nearly full of water, and then pouring a
sufficient quantity of the saccharine powder into the mouth of it from the
sugar-bowl with a spoon. Nothing more was necessary except to shake up the