homelike scent of his other herbs, the English simples, was
grateful to him, and so was the earth-smell, as he turned up the soil
about their roots, and eagerly snuffed it in. Little Pansie, on the
other hand, perhaps scandalized at great-grandpapa's neglect of the
prettiest plants in his garden, resolved to do her small utmost towards
balancing his injustice; so, with an old shingle, fallen from the roof,
which she had appropriated as her agricultural tool, she began to dig
about them, pulling up the weeds, as she saw grandpapa doing. The
kitten, too, with a look of elfish sagacity, lent her assistance, plying
her paws with vast haste and efficiency at the roots of one of the
shrubs. This particular one was much smaller than the rest, perhaps
because it was a native of the torrid zone, and required greater care
than the others to make it nourish; so that, shrivelled, cankered, and
scarcely showing a green leaf, both Pansie and the kitten probably
mistook it for a weed. After their joint efforts had made a pretty big
trench about it, the little girl seized the shrub with both hands,
bestriding it with her plump little legs, and giving so vigorous a pull,
that, long accustomed to be transplanted annually, it came up by the
roots, and little Pansie came down in a sitting posture, making a broad
impress on the soft earth. "See, see, Doctor!" cries Pansie, comically
enough giving him his title of courtesy,--"look, grandpapa, the big,
naughty weed!"

Now the Doctor had at once a peculiar dread and a peculiar value for
this identical shrub, both because his grandson's investigations had
been applied more ardently to it than to all the rest, and because it
was associated in his mind with an ancient and sad recollection. For he
had never forgotten that his wife, the early lost, had once taken a
fancy to wear its flowers, day after day, through the whole season of
their bloom, in her bosom, where they glowed like a gem, and deepened
her somewhat pallid beauty with a richness never before seen in it. At
least such was the effect which this tropical flower imparted to the
beloved form in his memory, and thus it somehow both brightened and
wronged her. This had happened not long before her death; and whenever,
in the subsequent years, this plant had brought its annual flower, it
had proved a kind of talisman to bring up the image of Bessie, radiant
with this glow that did not really belong to her naturally passive
beauty, quickly i