were in the old days.”  Then, with a few counter passes, he released her hand, and the poor woman told him all that he had enjoined upon her, as if they were the resolutions of her own will.  She was not sane, but she was free from the vile slavery in which her inhuman keeper had held her.  Moreover, she understood perfectly that Rawdon was dead, yet without manifesting either joy or grief in the knowledge.  The lawyer led her back to the workroom, where she confided her new state of mind to Mrs. Carruthers, greatly to that tender-hearted lady’s delight.  The doctor did not think it necessary to practise his art upon the lad Monty, in whom the power of Rawdon’s will was already broken, and upon whom his changed mother would, doubtless, exert a salutary influence.

Coristine had nothing to do, and almost dreaded meeting Miss Carmichael, which he probably would do if he remained about the house and grounds.  Therefore he got out the improvised vasculum, and invited Marjorie and the older Carruthers children to come with him down to the brook to look for wild flowers.  This met with the full approval of the young people, and they prepared at once for the botanizing party.  The Captain saw Marjorie putting on her broad-brimmed straw hat, and enquired where she was going.  She answered that she was going buttonizing with Eugene, and he said that he guessed he would button too, whatever that was.  A very merry little group frisked about the steps of the two seniors, one of whom was explaining to the older, nautical party that he was on the hunt for wild flowers.

“Is it yarbs you’re after?” asked the Captain.

“Well, not exactly, although I want to get a specimen of every kind of plant.”

“You don’t want to make medicine of ’em, Mandrake, Snakeroot, Wild Sassyperilly, Ginsing, Bearberry, Gentian, Cohosh and all that sort o’ stuff, eh?”

“No; I want to find out their names, dry and mount them, and classify them according to their kinds.”

“What good are they agoin’ to do you?”

“They will help me to know Nature better and to admire God’s works and His plan.”

“Keep on there, mate, fair sailin’ and a good wind to you.  No pay in it, though?”

“Not a cent in money, but lots of pleasure and health.”

“Like collectin’ post stamps and old pennies, and butterflies, and bugs.”

“Something, but you see scenery and get healthy exercise, which you don’t in stamp and coin collecting, and you inflict no suffering, as you do in entomologizing.”

“I can tell trees when they’re a growin’ and timber when its cut, but I don’t know the name of one flower from another, except it’s garden ones and common at that.  Hullo, little puss, what have you got there?”