"These are the yarbs I sent her and the children aftah. I didn't know how to rid the cabin of them without I sent for something, and now I don't know what to do with these. We—we're obliged to use them some way." She hesitated—"I reckon I didn't do right telling her that—do you guess? I had to make out like you needed them and had sent back for them; it—it wouldn't do to mad her—not one of her sort." Her head drooped with shame and she added pleadingly, "Mother has used these plants for making tea for sick folks—but—"
He rode to her side and lifted the unwieldy load to his own horse, "Be ye wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove," he said, laughing.
"How do you mean?"
"You were wise. You did right where I would only have done harm and been brutal. Can't you see these have already served their purpose?"
"I don't understand."
"You told her to get them because you wished to make her think she was doing something for her husband, didn't you? And you couldn't say to her that she would help most by taking herself out of the way, could you? She could not understand, and so they have served their purpose as a means of getting her quietly and harmlessly away so we could properly do our work."
"But I didn't say so—not rightly; I made her think—"
"Never mind what you said or made her think. You did right, God knows. We are all made to work out good—often when we think erroneously, just as you made her uncomprehendingly do what she ought. If ever she grows wise enough to understand, well and good; if not, no harm is done."
Cassandra listened, but doubtingly. At last she stopped her horse. "If you can't use them, I feel like I ought to go back and explain," she said. Her face gleamed whitely out of the gathering dusk, and he saw her shiver in the cold and bitter wind. He was more warmly dressed than she, and still he felt it cut through him icily.
"No. You shall not go back one step. It would be a useless waste of your time and strength. Later, if you still feel that you must, you can explain. Come."