Dr. Eben did not open his eyes. In an ecstasy of half consciousness he murmured, “Hetty.” As he stirred, his hand came in contact with the withered flowers. Touch was more potent than smell. He roused, lifted his head, saw the little blossoms now faded and gray lying near his cheek; and saying, “Oh, I remember,” sank back again into a few moments' drowsy reverie.
The morning was clear and cool, one window of the doctor's room looked east; the splendor of the sunrise shone in and illuminated the whole place. While he was dressing, he found himself persistently thinking of the strange name, “Tantibba.” “It is odd how that name haunts me,” he thought. “I wish I could see it written: I haven't the least idea how it is spelled. I wonder if she is an impostor. Her garden didn't look like it.” Presently he sauntered out: the morning stir was just beginning in the village. The child to whom he had spoken at “Tantibba's” gate, the night before, came up, driving the same flock of goats. The little fellow, as he passed, pulled the ragged tassel of his cap in token of recognition of the stranger who had accosted him. Without any definite purpose, Dr. Eben followed slowly on, watching a pair of young kids, who fell behind the flock, frolicking and half-fighting in antics so grotesque that they looked more like gigantic grasshoppers than like goats. Before he knew how far he had walked, he suddenly perceived that he was very near “Tantibba's” house.
“I'll walk on and steal another handful of the lavender,” he thought; “and if the old woman's up, perhaps I'll get a sight of her. I'd like to see what sort of a face answers to that outlandish name.”
As the doctor leaned over the paling, and looked again at Hetty's garden, he saw something which had escaped his notice before, and at which he started again, and muttered—this time aloud, and with an expression almost of terror,—“Good Heavens, if there isn't a chrysanthemum bed too, exactly like ours! what does this mean?” Hetty had little thought when she was laying out her garden, as nearly as possible like the garden she had left behind her, that she was writing a record which any eye but her own would note.
“I believe I'll go in and see this old French woman,” he thought: “it is such a strange thing that she should have just the same flowers Hetty had. I don't believe she's an adventuress, after all.”
Dr. Eben had his hand on the latch of the gate. At that instant, the cottage door opened, and “Tantibba,” in her white cap and gray gown, and with her scarlet basket on her arm, appeared on the threshold. Dr. Eben lifted his hat courteously, and advanced.
“I was just about to take the liberty of knocking at your door, madame,” he said, “to ask if you would give me a few of your lavender blossoms.”
As he began to speak, “Tantibba's” basket fell from her hand. As he advanced towards her, her eyes grew large with terror, and all color left her cheeks.
“Why do I terrify her so?” thought Dr. Eben, quickening his steps, and hastening to reassure her, by saying still more gently:
“Pray forgive me for intruding. I”—the words died on his lips: he stood like one stricken by paralysis; his hands falling helplessly by his side, and his eyes fixed in almost ghastly dread on this gray-haired woman, from whose white lips came, in Hetty's voice, the cry: