"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!" "It is the poetry of these things, and children like you and me, my dear, are not to be deprived of poetry by mere facts and common sense," said the doctor, sticking in the band of his hat the sprig of blue vervain which his sharp eyes had discovered. "Yonder on the side of that sandy hill shall we find mints, pennyroyal, and the close cousin of it, which is blue curls. There is the prunelle, and welcome to it! Gather all you can of it, Constance. That is self-heal, and a sovereign remedy for quinsy. So is it a balm for wounds of iron and steel tools, and for both these sorts of afflictions, what with our winter climate as to quinsy and our hard labour as to wounds, I am like to need abundant self-heal." Thus pleasantly chatting Doctor Fuller led the way, first up the sandy hill where grew the pennyroyal, all along the border of the woods where self-heal abounded. They found many plants unexpectedly, which the doctor always hailed with the joy of one who loved them, rather more than of the medical man who required them, and Constance busily snipped the stems, listening to the doctor's wise and kindly talk, loving him for his goodness and kindness to her in making her heart light and giving her on this day, which had promised to be sad, of his own abundant peace.