Presently she went strolling down the road, gathering some large leaves on her way, and stopped at the brook, where she pulled up some bits of a strange water-weed, and made them into a damp, round bundle with the leaves and a bit of string.  This was a rare plant which they had both noticed the day before, and they had taken some specimens then, Nan being at this time an ardent botanist, but these had withered and been lost, also, on the way home.

Dr. Leslie was in even less of a hurry than usual, and when he came out he looked very much pleased.  “I never was more thankful in my life,” he said eagerly, as soon as he was within convenient distance.  “That poor fellow was at death’s door yesterday, and when I saw his wife and little children, and thought his life was all that stood between them and miserable destitution, it seemed to me that I must save it!  This morning he is as bright as a dollar, but I have been dreading to go into that house ever since I left it yesterday noon.  They didn’t in the least know how narrow a chance he had.  And it isn’t the first time I have been chief mourner.  Poor souls! they don’t dread their troubles half so much as I do.  He will have a good little farm here in another year or two, it only needs draining to be excellent land, and he knows that.”  The doctor turned and looked back over the few acres with great pleasure.  “Now we’ll go and see about old Mrs. Willet, though I don’t believe there’s any great need of it.  She belongs to one of two very bad classes of patients.  It makes me so angry to hear her cough twice as much as need be.  In your practice,” he continued soberly, “you must remember that there is danger of giving too strong doses to such a sufferer, and too light ones to the friends who insist there is nothing the matter with them.  I wouldn’t give much for a doctor who can’t see for himself in most cases, but not always,—­not always.”

The doctor was in such a hospitable frame of mind that nobody could have helped telling him anything, and happily he made an excellent introduction for Nan’s secret by inquiring how she had got on with her studies, but she directed his attention to the wet plants in the bottom of the carriage, which were complimented before she said, a minute afterward, “Oh, I wonder if I shall make a mistake?  I was afraid you would laugh at me, and think it was all nonsense.”

“Dear me, no,” replied the doctor.  “You will be the successor of Mrs. Martin Dyer, and the admiration of the neighborhood;” but changing his tone quickly, he said:  “I am going to teach you all I can, just as long as you have any wish to learn.  It has not done you a bit of harm to know something about medicine, and I believe in your studying it more than you do yourself.  I have always thought about it.  But you are very young; there’s plenty of time, and I don’t mean to be hurried; you must remember that,—­though I see your fitness and peculiar adaptability a great deal better than you can these twenty years yet.  You will be growing happier these next few years at any rate, however impossible life has seemed to you lately.”