Constance ran upstairs to hide her laughing face. She came down almost at once with that face shaded by a deep bonnet, a basket hung on her arm, shears sticking up out of it, pulling on long-armed half-gloves as she came.
As they walked down the narrow street Constance glanced up at Doctor Fuller, interrogatively.
"And——?" the doctor hinted.
"And I was wondering whether you were not treating me to-day as your patient?" Constance said. "A patient with a trouble of the mind, and also a heart complaint?"
"Which means——?" The doctor again waited for Constance to fill out his question.
"Which means that you knew I was sorely troubled about Giles; that he had gone without better drawing to his father; that I was anxious about him, even while wishing him to go; and that you gave me this day in the woods with you for my healing," Constance answered.
"At least not for your harm, little maid," said the doctor. "It hath been my experience that the gatherer of herbs gets a healing of spirit that is not set down in our books among the beneficial qualities of the plants, but which may, under conditions, be their best attribute. Although the singing of brooks and birds, the sweetness of the winds, the solemn nobility of the trees, the vastness of the sky, the over-brooding presence of God in His creation are compounded with the herbs, and impart their powers to us with that of the plants."
"That is true," said Constance. "I feel my vexations go from me as if my soul were bathed in a miraculous elixir, when I go troubled to the woods and sit in them awhile."
"Of a certainty," agreed the doctor, bending his tall, thin figure to pick a small leaf which he held up to Constance. "See this, with its likeness to the halberd at its base? This is vervain, which is called 'Simpler's Joy,' because of the good it yields to those who, like us to-day, are simplers, gatherers of simple herbs for mankind's benefit. Now let us hope that this single plant is a forerunner of many of its kind, for it hath been a sacred herb among the ancients, as among Christians, and it should be an augury of good to us to find it. Look you, Constance, I do not mind confessing it to you, for you are not only young, but of that happy sort who yield to imagination something of its due. I like my omens to be favourable, not in superstition, though our brethren would condemn me thus, but from a sense of harmony and the satisfaction of it."
"How pleasant a hearing is that, Doctor Fuller!" laughed Constance. "I love to have the new moon aright, though well I know the moon and I have naught in common! And though I do not believe in fairies, yet do I like to make due allowance for them!"