them up, and they all died; and my mother, and her mother,--who taught the
drink to me,--and her mother afore her, thought it a sin to try to live
longer than the Lord pleased, so they let themselves die. And though the
drink is good, Septimius, and toothsome, as you see, yet I sometimes feel
as if I were getting old, like other people, and may die in the course of
the next half-century; so perhaps the rum was not just the thing that was
wanting to make up the recipe. But it is very good! Take a drop more of
it, dear."

"Not at present, I thank you, Aunt Keziah," said Septimius, gravely; "but
will you tell me what the ingredients are, and how you make it?"

"Yes, I will, my boy, and you shall write them down," said the old woman;
"for it's a good drink, and none the worse, it may be, for not making you
live forever. I sometimes think I had as lief go to heaven as keep on
living here."

Accordingly, making Septimius take pen and ink, she proceeded to tell him a
list of plants and herbs, and forest productions, and he was surprised to
find that it agreed most wonderfully with the recipe contained in the old
manuscript, as he had puzzled it out, and as it had been explained by the
doctor. There were a few variations, it is true; but even here there was a
close analogy, plants indigenous to America being substituted for cognate
productions, the growth of Europe. Then there was another difference in
the mode of preparation, Aunt Keziah's nostrum being a concoction, whereas
the old manuscript gave a process of distillation. This similarity had a
strong effect on Septimius's imagination. Here was, in one case, a drink
suggested, as might be supposed, to a primitive people by something
similar to that instinct by which the brute creation recognizes the
medicaments suited to its needs, so that they mixed up fragrant herbs for