Ling and wortleberry too were moorland visitors in the valley, and the bog
heather already budded.
Here was one of the many favorite resting-places of Joan, and hither she
came on a rare morning in mid June at the wish of another person.
Uncle Chirgwin had set his niece a task, and the object of her present
visit was no mere dawdling and thinking while perched upon the granite
throne above the meadowsweets. This fact a basket and a three-pronged fork
indicated. Her uncle deemed himself an authority on simples and possessed
much information, mostly erroneous, concerning the properties of wild herbs
and flowers. A decoction of hemp agrimony he at all times considered a most
valuable bitter tonic; and of this plant the curious flesh-colored flowers
on their long green stems grew pretty freely by the stream-side in the
valley. The time of flowering was not yet come, but Joan knew the dull leaf
of the herb well enough and, that found, she could easily dig up the root,
wherein its virtue dwelt. But before starting on her search, the girl
rested a while where the serrated foliage and creamy blossom of the
meadowsweets laced and fringed the granite of her couch; and, as she sat
there, her eye taking in the happy valley, her brain reading into the
luxuriant life of nature, some strange new thoughts hidden until lately,
she became suddenly conscious of a phenomenon beyond her power to
immediately explain or understand It drove the hemp agrimony quite out of
her head, and, when the mystery came to be explained, filled Joan's mind
with the memory of her own sad affairs.
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