Miss Euphrasia Higginbottom had just walked into the doorpost for the third time that week.
“Don’t you, think, Phrasie, dear,” said her companion Mrs Ainsworth, “that it’s time you equipped yourself with some spectacles?”
But Miss Euphrasia would have none of it. “I have my eyebright remedy,” she said, “I swear by it.”
Mrs Ainsworth was privately inclined to swear at it rather than by it, and said this was just so much eye-wash. “Perhaps a discreet lorgnette…?”
This suggestion was met with a disdainful snort. “I have perfect eyesight,” said Miss Euphrasia, and walked into the doorpost again as she swept out of the room.
The eyebright drops were administered to each eye, just as the herbalist had recommended. Refreshing for the kidneys, too, thought Miss Euphrasia, as she took a swig for good measure. An invigorating concoction, indeed. And it was not alone. A positive pharmacopeia of remedies had accumulated in the past year. Mrs Ainsworth had warned her to have a care, to put her trust in the good Doctor Badbury rather than that herbalist fellow. But no, all advice was ignored, and Miss Euphrasia asserted that they all Did Her Good.
On the day of the Great Misfortune, as Mrs Ainsworth liked to think of it, there had been another incident with the doorpost, and Miss Euphrasia had withdrawn to her room to find the eye-drops. Well, such a commotion! Wailing and howling, she was. And very ill indeed. Doctor Badbury was summoned this time, and gave a great speech on the folly of self-administered cures. Miss Euphrasia cursed him in a most unladylike fashion, in between dabbing her streaming eyes and having recourse to the sick-bowl.
It remained unclear which of the many remedies she had so trustingly dropped into her eyes and swallowed, too. Suffice it say her imperfect eyesight had led her to mistake the label. The remedies were removed from the premises, and a pair of spectacles acquired.
Mrs Ainsworth showed great forbearance in omitting to say I Told You So. But she couldn’t resist a distinctly smug smile.

Kathy Sharp is the author of fabulous fantasy novel Isle of Larus http://tinyurl.com/olfyskv and the exciting sequel Sea of Clouds http://amzn.to/1wYCPH0