"Shall I put you up a little cotton wool with the laudanum?" he asked,
after he had placed a label on the bottle, and had written a word on it
in large letters.
"If you please. What have you just written on the bottle?" She put the
question sharply, with something of distrust as well as curiosity in her
manner.
The chemist answered the question by turning the label toward her. She
saw written on it, in large letters--POISON.
"I like to be on the safe side, miss," said the old man, smiling. "Very
worthy people in other respects are often sadly careless where poisons
are concerned."
She began trifling again with the bottles on the counter, and put
another question, with an ill-concealed anxiety to hear the answer.
"Is there danger," she asked, "in such a little drop of Laudanum as
that?"
"There is Death in it, miss," replied the chemist, quietly.
"Death to a child, or to a person in delicate health?"
"Death to the strongest man in England, let him be who he may."
With that answer, the chemist sealed up the bottle in its wrapping of
white paper and handed the laudanum to Magdalen across the counter. She
laughed as she took it from him, and paid for it.
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