they first struck me. I was one evening at the house of a friend, playing, with one of his daughters, the simple game called "domino." It was about the tenth game, I think, when I felt a sudden pain in my left breast, accompanied with an aptitude for sighing. I got very badly beat; but it could not have been that which occasioned the sudden attack; for my grandmother beat me, the evening before, thrice as many times, without my feeling the least disagreeable sensation in the left breast. It could not have been any thing in the ivory, — don't laugh, now; I don't mean her white teeth, - nor in the marble table on which we played the game; no, indeed; I should just as soon have expected evil to arise from the contact of the fair hand with which my pretty opponent moved her pieces-just as soon. It could not have been the touch of the hand. Let me think. It

must have been the ivory.

We read in the Ara

bian Nights, or somewhere else, of a medicine enclosed in an ivory ball, and so made to perform a wonderful cure.

an oblong square of the must be the ivory," said I. domino.

Why not a disease in same material?

"It

So I left off playing

Leaving off playing domino did not cure me;

and I grew worse daily. I did not stop going to the house of my friend, because I thought it quite probable that I might derive benefit from listening to the very sweet singing and very delightful playing of my little opponent at domino. She was a very good-natured girl, and did all she could to drive away my disease, by singing to me sweet songs and sweeter hymns, and by playing Haynes Bayley and Beranger over and over again. But all this only seemed to aggravate the old symptoms, and to bring on new ones. In many respects, and in most of the symptoms, the disease seemed like the dyspepsy; for I had, at times, an intolerable languor, and at other times a fiery activity, a beating of the heart, a headache, no appetite for food, low spirits pretty generally, with, at particular times, slight alleviations; an intolerable restlessness, especially between sunrise and the hour for morning calls; and an indisposition to sleep worthy of Lord Brougham or Alfred the Great.

Other symptoms obtruded themselves, of a singular nature, still more perplexing to medical men, and still more dangerous to myself; —an unaccountable hankering to be left with not more than one in the room; an involuntary

anxiety to be taking the hand of that same person; a voluntary twisting of the lips into a peculiar and most particular shape; an extreme and most appalling nervousness, that sometimes, before I knew what I was about, would make me clasp my room-mate in a manner by no means equivocal, and scarcely to be endured by a full-grown person of the gentler sex. Tears I had sometimes; and then I generally became very eloquent, and, in the language of Scripture, lifted up my voice, though I liked a low whisper better.

another

I have lived through a half year has commenced, and I am no better. I am, in truth, very much distressed with my disease. I have consulted Dr. Jackson, and Dr. Shurtleff, and Dr. Ware, and three Philadelphia doctors, and the famous Dr. Sangrado, who, as usual, advises blood-letting; but none of them can do any thing for me. I have still the same inclination to play domino; have headaches, heartburnings, low spirits, no appetite, and the hankering to be alone as aforesaid, and the voluntary puckering as aforesaid, and the nervousness. Walking helps me some; but it is only when I walk in a particular path and di

rection. I might as well walk on the treadmill with a view to relief, as to walk in any path save one. I must walk from my own box W. N. W. W, thirty-eight rods and six feet, to feel my exercise beneficial. Going to church gives me great relief; especially does the music; my heart beats time to the treble, that particular part affecting me to such a degree, that I have actually experienced relief from walking home from the church with one of the treble singers. Strange disease! Strange disease! Was there ever the like? I must get cured, or killed.

I said that I must find a remedy for my disease; that I must consult some other physician. I have done so; I have been to a certain Dr. Brownlocks, and have obtained sensible relief. Some of the symptoms have disappeared; others have acquired a new character-diagnosis I think it is called. The headache is gone; the beating at the heart has become a pleasure

so much of positive enjoyment, that I do not wish to be cured of it; the low spirits have gone on a tour to the Red Sea; and for appetite, why, the less I say about that, the more there will be of refinement in my language. The

hankering to have the party consist of-two, and the puckering up of the lips, and the nervousness I spoke of, are all upon me stronger than ever; but my physician thinks them no particular cause of alarm; nay, has symptoms of laboring under the same malady. And now I will tell you how I was cured. Gentlemen, hats off; ladies, please drop your best courtesy to my estimable physician, who, though with a curly head, wears not the professional wig.

It was in the pleasant month of June, when I found myself at the house of my friend in the room, and, for the first time in many months, again playing domino with the same person with whom I had played it some six months before. We commenced it, and continued playing and playing, till at last it was sunset bright sunset, with its glorious refulgence thrown over the whole west, and fringing the massy clouds with glittering, yellow sunlight. To-day my opponent was very annoying — very,

stealing my pieces, cheating in the marks, &c. I could not wrap her knuckles as I would a school-boy's; so I had to take fast hold of her hand, and keep it so tightly locked in mine, that she could not use it for my further annoyance. Holding one hand is not holding both; a griev