HORA PRIMA,

THE FAVORITE OF THE FAMILY;

OR,

PRETTY LITTLE DOSES FOR PRETTY LITTLE DEARS.

AN "OWER TRUE TALE."

"I held my tongue and spake nothing: I kept silence, yea, even
from good words; but it was pain and grief to me."

"My heart was hot within me and while I was thus musing, the
fire kindled and at the last I spake with my tongue."

LONDON:

AYLOTT AND CO., 8, PATERNOSTER ROW;

OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH.

MDCCCLIII.

157. c.120

PREFACE.

SHOULD any one who reads this story feel curious to know whether it is true or not, let him be assured that it is. Should he wish to know where it happened, he may be sure that it was in his own city, in his own street, in his own parish, in his own village. If he inquires the name of the heroine, let him go to the nearest church-yard and search out the monument of some young girl, for it happened to her; and the names of the medical men were Legion. And should he ask why it is published anonymously, it is to avoid even the possibility of imagining a "local habitation and a name" for that which is happening every day, everywhere. No one can observe the manner in which medical men labour among