"Surely, my child. I am not repining, for, though I am opposed to the extreme strict views of some of our community, and they look askance upon me for it at times, yet do I not oppose the will of God," said the doctor, simply. "Who of them fulfils it as you do?" cried Constance. "You who go out to minister to the sick savages, not content to heal your own brethren?" "And are not the savages also our brothers?" asked the doctor, taking up his wallet. "Come then, child; we will go home, and this afternoon shall you learn something of distilling, as you have, I hope, this morning learned something of selecting herbs for remedies." Constance went along at the doctor's side, swinging her bonnet, not afraid of the hot September sun upon her face. It lighted up her disordered hair, and turned it into the semblance of burnished metal, upon which the doctor's eyes rested with the same satisfaction that had warmed them as he looked on the generous beauty of aster and goldenrod, and he saw with pleasure that Constance's face was also shining, its brightness returned, and he was well content with the effect of his prescription for this patient. Constance had a gift of forgetting herself in an ecstasy that seized her when the weight of her new surroundings was lifted. With Doctor Fuller she felt perfect sympathy, and her utter delight in this lovely day bubbled up and found expression. Doctor Fuller heard her singing one of her little improvised songs, softly, under her breath, to a crooning air that was less an air than a succession of sweet sounds. It was the sort of little song with which Constance often amused the children of the settlement, and Doctor Fuller, that childlike soul, listened to her with much of their pleasure in it. "Blossom, and berry, and herb of grace; Purple and blue and gold lighting each place; Herbs for our body and bloom for our heart-- Beauty and healing, for each hath its part. Under the sunshine and in the starlight, Warp and woof weareth the pattern aright. Shineth the fabric when summer's at end: The garment scarce hiding the Heart of our Friend," Constance sang, nor did the doctor interrupt her simple Te Deum by a word. At the doctor's house dinner awaited them, kept hot, for they were tardy. After it, and when Constance had helped to put away all signs of its having been, the doctor said to her: "Now for my laboratory, such as it is, and for our task, my apprentice in medicine!" He conducted Constance into a small room, at the rear of the house where he had set up tables of various sizes of his own manufacture, and where were ranged on the shelves running around three sides of the room at different heights, bowls, glasses of odd shapes--the uses of which were not known to Constance--and small, delicate tools, knives, weights, and piles of strips of linen, neatly rolled and placed in assorted widths in an accessible corner.