“Oh yes, Miss! The syrup of violets makes people sleep as well as the laudanum the doctors are so fond of now-a-days. But next month and the one after it are those of all the year that bring forth most of the plants of which the leaves and flowers are good for physic. August and September ripen such as have most virtue in the seeds and roots. If your mamma likes it, I shall be very glad to tell you all I know about these things, and Jane can shew you all the plants I use in the fields.” “Thank you!—thank you, dear Molly! but here comes Sam, with a whole bundle of sticks. What can they be? Oh, I see now, they are palms to wear to-morrow. Are they good to cure sickness? And why do we call them palms, and carry them about on Palm Sunday?” “Why, Miss, I think you had better ask your papa the two last questions, and, in the meantime, I will do my best to answer the first. The bark of willows in general, but particularly that of the sallow, which is the palm-willow, has long been known and used as a cure for agues and low fevers; and though the elm and some other barks were employed, yet none was found to be so good as the sallow, till the Jesuits brought the bark of a shrub from America, about two hundred years ago, which is so much more powerful as a cure for the same disorders that the European barks are nearly out of use. {5} But here comes your papa, and I shall be as glad as you to hear what he will have to tell you.” “Papa! papa!” cried the eager little girl, as she ran to meet her father, “do come in quick, and tell Molly, and Jane, and me, all about them.” “All about what, or who, my dear? The new benches in the church, or the children in the new school?” “No, no, not now; but about the palms, papa! and Palm-Sunday, and why we carry palms, and—” “Enough, enough, my little girl. If I answer all those questions, I must sit down in the chimney-corner, and Jane must give me a draught of whey, and Molly must have patience with us for at least half an hour.” “That I will, and be thankful too, your reverence,” said the old woman. Jane dusted the settle, and brought the whey, and the party was soon seated. And now, who so happy as little Mary? Seated on her father’s knee, hoping to have all her questions answered, with old Molly in the opposite chimney-corner, Jane at work in the window-seat, and old puss purring on the hearth: it was far the best Saturday afternoon she had known, this year at any rate.