“Who was that you spoke to then?” asked the doctor.
“Tantibba!” replied the lad, hurrying on. Dr. Eben caught him by the shoulder. “Look here!” he exclaimed, “just tell me that name again. This is the fourth time I've heard it tonight. Is it the woman's first name or what?” The lad was a stupid English lad, who had but recently come to service in St. Mary's, and had never even thought to wonder what the name “Tantibba,” meant. He stared vacantly for a moment, and then said:
“Indeed, sir, and I don't know. She's never called any thing else that I've heard.”
“Who is she? what does she do?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, sir! she's a great nurse, from foreign parts: she has a power of healing-herbs in her garden, and she goes each day to the English House to heal the sick. There's nobody like her. If she do but lay her hand on one, they do say it is a cure.”
“She is French, I suppose,” said the doctor; thinking to himself, “Some adventuress, doubtless.”
“Ay, sir, I think so,” answered the lad; “but I must not stay to speak any more, for the mistress waits for this balm to make tea for the cook Jean, who is like to have a fever;” and the lad disappeared under the low archway of the basement.
Dr. Eben walked back and forth in front of the inn, still crushing in his fingers the lavender flowers and inhaling their fragrance. Idly he watched “Tantibba's” figure till it disappeared in the distance.
“This is just the sort of place for a tricky old French woman to make a fortune in,” he said to himself: “these people are simple enough to believe any thing;” and Dr. Eben went to his room, and tossed the lavender blossoms down on his pillow.
When he waked in the morning, his first thoughts were bewildered: nothing in nature is so powerful in association as a perfume. A sound, a sight, is feeble in comparison; the senses are ever alert, and the mind is accustomed always to act promptly on their evidence. But a subtle perfume, which has been associated with a person, a place, a scene, can ever afterward arrest us; can take us unawares, and hold us spell-bound, while both memory and knowledge are drugged by its charm.