"Yes, oh yes, little sister! We know he will, because we so want him!"
"There must be a better ground for hope than our poor desires, Damaris," Dame Eliza was beginning, speaking over the child at Constance; when opportunely a shadow fell across the floor through the open door and Constance turned to see Doctor Fuller smiling at her.
"Good morning, Mistress Hopkins; good morning little Damaris; and good morning to you, Constance lass!" he said. "Is this a day of especial business? Are you too busy for charity to your neighbours, beginning with me, and indirectly reaching out to our entire community?"
Constance smiled at him with that swift brightening of her face that was one of her chief attractions; her expression was always playing between grave and gay.
"It is not a day of especial business, Doctor Fuller," she said, "or at least all our days are especial ones where there is everything yet to be done. But I could give it over to charity better than some other days, and if it were charity to you—though I fear there is nothing for such as I to do for such as you—then how gladly would I do it, if only to pay a tittle of the debt we all owe to you."
"Good child!" said the doctor. "I need help and comradeship in my herb gathering; it is to be done to-day, if you will be that helper. There is no wind, and there is that benignity of sun and sky that hath always seemed to me to impart special virtue to herbs gathered under it. So will you come with me? We will gather the morning long, and this afternoon I purpose distilling, in which necessary work your deft fingers will be of the greatest assistance to me."
"Gladly will I go," cried Constance, flushing with pleasure. "I will fetch my basket and shears, put on my bonnet, and be ready in a trice. Shall I prepare a lunch, or shall I be at home again for dinner?"
"Neither, Constance; there is yet another alternative." Doctor Fuller looked with great satisfaction at Constance's happier face as he spoke; she had been so melancholy when he had come. "I have arranged that you shall be my guest at dinner in my house, and after it we will to work in my substitute for a laboratory. Mistress Hopkins, Constance will be quite safe, be assured; and you, I trust, will not mind a quiet day with Damaris and Oceanus to bear you company?"
"And if I did mind it, would that prevent it?" demanded Dame Eliza with a toss of her head. "Not even with a 'by your leave' does Constantia Hopkins arrange her goings and comings."
"Which was wholly my fault in not first putting my question to you, instead of to Constance directly," said Doctor Fuller. "And surely there is no excuse for my blundering, I who am trained to feel pulses and look at tongues! But since it is thus happily concluded, and your stepmother is glad to let you have a sort of holiday, come then; hasten, Constance girl!"