r. Norris?"

Anthony looked at it, and described its little white flower and its
leaves.

"That is it," said the Archbishop, "I thought my memory served me. It is
a kind of marjoram, and it has many virtues, against cramps, convulsions
and venomous bites--so Galen tells us." Then he went on to talk of the
simple old plants that he loved best; of the two kinds of basil that he
always had in his garden; and how good it was mixed in sack against the
headache; and the male penny-royal, and how well it had served him once
when he had great internal trouble.

"Mr. Gerrard was here a week or two ago, Mr. Norris, when you were down
at Croydon for me. He is my Lord Burghley's man; he oversees his gardens
at Wimbledon House, and in the country. He was telling me of a rascal he
had seen at a fair, who burned henbane and made folks with the toothache
breathe in the fumes; and then feigned to draw a worm forth from the
aching tooth; but it was no worm at all, but a lute string that he held
ready in his hand. There are sad rascals abroad, Mr. Norris."

The old man waxed eloquent when they came to the iris bed.

"Ah! Mr. Norris, the flowers-de-luce are over by now, I fear; but what
wonderful creatures of God they are, with their great handsome heads and
their cool flags. I love to hear a bed of them rustle all together and
shake their spears and nod their banners like an army in array. And then
they are not only for show. Apuleius says that they are good against the
gout. I asked Mr. Gerrard whether my lord had tried them; but he said no,
he would not."

At the violet bed he was yet more emphatic.

"I think, Mr. Norris, I love these the best of all. They are lowly
creatures; but how sweet! and like other lowly creatures exalted by their
Maker to do great things as his handmaidens. The leaves are good against
inflammations, and the flowers against ague and hoarseness as well. And
then there is oil-of-violets, as you know; and violet-syrup and
sugar-violet; then they are good for blisters; garlands of them were an
ancient cure for the headache, as I think Dioscorides tells us. And they
are the best of all cures for some children's ailments."

And so they walked up and down together; the Archbishop talking quietly
on and on; and helping quite unknown to himself by his tender irrelevant
old man's talk to soothe the fever of unrest and anxiety that was
beginning to torment Anthony so much now. His conversation, like the very
flowe