“Well?” asked Sir David. His tone was broken with an undercurrent of laughter. Ellinor smiled in her dark corner. She compared this David, interested and amused in human matters, pleasant of intercourse himself and appreciative of another’s company, to the man of taciturn moods and melancholy, who fed on his own morbid thought and fled from his fellow men—to the David of but a few months ago. She knew it was her woman’s presence that had, as if unconsciously, wrought the change. “Well?” said Sir David again. “My dear fellow,” cried Master Simon, breaking into a louder cackle. “John Cantrip, as you say, has changed from a bear into a lamb; at least from a sullen, dangerous animal into an exceedingly pleasant, light-hearted one. He sings, he whistles, he laughs—all that cerebral congestion, that nervous irritation, has been soothed away under the balmy influence of this valuable plant. The excellent creature is able to take delight in his life, in the beautiful objects of Nature around him. He admires the blue sky, he rejoices in the seasonable heat, he embraces his spouse—he will hang over his infant’s cradle and express a tender, paternal desire to rock him to slumber. Every happy instinct has been wakened, every morose one lulled. Would I could induce the government of this land to enforce in each parish the cultivation of _Euphrosinum_. My good sir, we should have no more need of prisons, or stocks, or gallows!” “And yet you say,” quoth David, “that Mrs. Cantrip is dissatisfied.” “Most excellent David, from early days of the earth downwards, the woman was ever the most unreasonable of all God’s creatures. She wants the impossible, she wants the perfection of things, which is not of this world. Instead of rejoicing, this foolish person complains.” “Complains?”