‘There’s rudbeckia: justice,’ said Charlotte hopefully. But the medicine book, when consulted, pretended not to know anything at all about rudbeckia, and as the children knew nothing about it either, it was ruled out.
‘There’s justice shall be done, Cornflower,’ said Charlotte; and the medicine book, after saying ‘See Bluebottle,’ informed them that cornflowers ‘being naturally cold and dry are under the dominion of Saturn’; also that ‘taken with water of plantain or the greater comfrey is a remedy againſt the poiſon of the ſcorpion.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Charlotte gaily; ‘it must be sharper than a scorpion’s teeth to have a wicked landlord. Now——’
‘I’ll look now,’ said Caroline; ‘you wash, quick!’
Caroline chose red columbine because it meant ‘anxious and trembling’; ‘and I’m sure we shall be that soon enough,’ she said. The medicine book confirmed her choice by assuring her that columbine was an herb of Venus, commonly used, with good success, for ‘ſore mouths and throats.’
‘Ours will be, before we’ve done,’ she said. ‘We shall have to explain to him a lot.’
The liverwort polyanthus, though signifying confidence, was rejected as being too difficult to find most likely; but the daily rose (‘Thy smile I aspire to’) seemed the very thing, and it was agreed that lemon verbena (‘Unexpected meeting’) would be both scented and appropriate.
‘And I’ve got a little straw too,’ said Caroline—‘I got it while William was harnessing—it did so well with uncle; and wistaria means ‘Welcome, fair stranger,’ so we’ll have that. There was no time to look these up in the medicine book, except liverwort, and of this they had only to read that ‘It is true that Mizaldus and others, yea, almoſt all aſtrological phyſicians hold this to be an herb of Jupiter, but the truth is it is an herb of Mercury, and a ſingular good herb for all ſadness of ſpirit,’ when Charles came to say ‘Hurry up! or William will be off without us.’
‘To gather the flowers will be but the work of a moment,’ said Caroline; ‘you two go in the carriage, and I’ll tell William to drive out by the deserted lodge and pick me up at the garden gate.’
Unfortunately the flowers were not easy to find. The gardener had to be consulted, and thus the gathering of Lord Andore’s presentation bouquet was the work of about a quarter of an hour, so that William was waiting and very cross indeed when Caroline came running out of the garden with the flowers—a mere bundle, and no bouquet, as Charles told her—in her held-up skirt.