'You are offering me a sorry garland;' and Mildred forced a smile over the girl's quaint conceit. 'Mints, savory, marjoram, all the homeliest herbs you could find in your garden. I shall not forget the compliment to my middle age,' grumbled Dr. Heriot, who was unusually tickled at the goodness of the _repartee_ Polly was never so thoroughly at her ease as when she was under Aunt Milly's wing. Just then Mildred rose to recall Olive and Chriss; as she went down the woody hillock a quick contraction of pain furrowed her brow. 'There's rue for you,' she said to herself; 'ah, and rosemary, that's for remembrance. Oh, Polly, I felt tempted to use old Polonius's words, and say, "there's a method in madness"; how little you know the true word spoken in jest; never mind, if I can only take it as "my herb of grace o' Sundays," it will be well yet.' Mildred found herself monopolised by Chriss during their homeward walk. Polly and Dr. Heriot were in front, and Olive, as was often her custom, lingering far behind. 'Let them go on, Aunt Milly,' whispered Chriss; 'lovers are dreadfully poor company to every one but themselves. Polly will be no good at all now she is engaged.' 'What do you know about lovers, a little girl like you?' returned Mildred, amused in spite of herself. 'I am not a little girl, I am nearly sixteen,' replied Chriss, indignantly. 'Romeo and Juliet were all very well, and so were Ferdinand and Miranda, but in real life it is so stupid. I have made up my mind that I shall never marry.' 'Wait until you are asked, puss.' 'Ah, as to that,' returned the young philosopher, calmly, 'as Dr. John says, it takes all sorts of people to make up a world, and I daresay some one will be found who does not object to eye-glasses.' 'Or to blue stockings,' observed Mildred, rather slyly. 'You forget we live in enlightened days,' remarked Chriss, sententiously; 'this sort of ideas belonged to the Dark Ages. Minds are not buried alive now because they happen to be born in the feminine gender,' continued Chriss, with a slight confusion of metaphor. Mildred smiled. Chriss's odd talk distracted her from sad thoughts. The winding path had already hidden the lovers from her; unconsciously she slackened her pace. 'I should not mind a nice gray professor, perhaps, if he knew lots of languages, and didn't take snuff. But they all do; it clears the brain, and is a salutary irritant,' went on Chriss, who had only seen one professor in her life, and that one a very dingy specimen. 'I should like my professor to be old and sensible, and not young and silly, and he must not care about eating and drinking, or expect me to sew on his buttons, or mend his gloves. Some one ought to invent a mending-machine. I am sure these things take away half the pleasure of living.' 'My little Chriss, do you mean to be head without hands? You will be a very imperfect woman, I am afraid, and I hope in that case you will not find your professor.'