"Sir," said Hannah, "you should see my sister!"
And just then he did see her. Ann Mary came into the brightly lighted room, her eyes wide and dark from the dusk outside, her long black hair, shaken loose from its fastenings, curling up beautifully with the dew, and making a frame for the pearl-like oval of her face. I have seen a miniature of Ann Mary in her youth, and I can guess how she must have looked to the young officer that evening.
The minister's wife gave them all a hot supper, and hurried them off to bed with motherly authority. For the first time in her life, Hannah found herself between linen sheets. She tried to call her sister's attention to this astonishing magnificence, but fell asleep in the middle of the sentence, and did not wake until late the next morning. Ann Mary had been awake for some time, but did not dare get up, so overcome was she by shyness and reverence for the grandeur of the room and of her hosts.
"Oh, Hannah! Would it not be like heaven to live always in such a place?" she said.
Hannah could not stop to be shy, or to think about how she would like mahogany beds all the time. She had too much on her mind. They must go at once to the herb-doctor's—they should have been there before—and they must hurry through their breakfast. It is, perhaps, worthy of note that both girls came down the stairs backward, ladders having been, up to that time, their only means of reaching elevations.
During their breakfast, the dark young man, who turned out to be a cousin of the minister's, sat in a corner, playing with his dog's ears, and looking at Ann Mary until she was quite abashed, although the younger girl, at whom he glanced smilingly from time to time, thought he looked very good-natured. After this, Hannah sent Remember Williams home with the horses, giving him fresh and elaborate directions about the right road to take. Then she marched Ann Mary to the herb-doctor's.
"Here, Master Necronsett," she said, "here is Ann Mary to be cured!"
III.
When the doctor told them about his system, Hannah did not like the sound of it at all. Not a drop of "sut tea" or herb-drink was mentioned, but the invalid was to eat all the hearty food Hannah could earn for her. Then, so far from sleeping in a decently tight room, their bed was to stand in a little old shed, set up against Master Necronsett's house. One side of the shed was gone entirely, so that the wind and the sun would come right in on poor, delicate Ann Mary, and there was only an awning of woven bark-withes to let down when it rained.
But even that was not the worst. Hannah listened with growing suspicion while Master Necronsett explained the rest of it. All his magic consisted in the use of a "witch plant," the whole virtue of which depended on one thing. The sick person must be the only one to handle or care for it, from the seed up to the mature plant.