"No," the Doctor answered for himself, laying down on the window-seat beside him the microscope with which he had been engaged. "No," he said, with a good-humored smile; "but I know Harry's choice in flowers. He begins to have a nice tact as to what's what, when it is a question of helping me; but, for himself, he still likes flowers for their looks, or sometimes, I think, for their names. His favorites are the May-flower and the Forget-me-not. They represent for him the New World and the Old,—that of hope, and that of memory. But he is a friend of all wild-flowers, especially of spring wild-flowers,—and more especially of those of New England. He loves the blood-root, though he ought not, for it is a dissembler; it wears outwardly the garb of peace and innocence, but, out of sight, wraps itself in the red robes of tyranny and war."
"No," Harry answered; "red is the color of tyrants only because they have usurped that with the rest. Red, in the old tradition, is symbolic of Divine Love, the source of righteous power. White is the symbol of Divine Wisdom, and is that of peace, because where this wisdom is there must be harmony."
This talk of New-England wild-flowers, the mention of names once so familiar, was very pleasant to me. I must have the blood-root, if it will grow here. I could never see it again without seeing in it a great deal more than itself. For me, the pure white of the flower will symbolize the wisdom of God, always manifest; the red of the root, His love, sometimes latent, yet still there.
The Doctor, having made his protest, put the microscope into its case, and came to my mother's table to examine. When he spied the little flowers nestled in the green, he exclaimed,—
"Where did you find these, Harry? You must have gone far for them."
"No; I found them where the old forest used to be, among the stumps."
"Waiting for a new generation of protectors to grow up about them," said the Doctor, looking at them kindly; "this generous climate leaves nothing long despoiled. If Nature is let alone, she will soon have a forest there again. But, Harry, you must take me to that spot. We'll see what else there is to find."
"Are these flowers scarce?" Harry asked.
"They are getting to be."
"I should have shown them to you, but they are so pretty I thought they must be common."