"Ritchie can take excellent care of me," she continued, most anxious
to divert his thoughts. "You see it will do very well indeed for you
to take Harry to school."

"I should like to do so. I should like to see his master, and to
take Norman with me," said the doctor. "It would be just the thing
for him now--we would show him the dockyard, and all those matters,
and such a thorough holiday would set him up again."

"He is very much better."

"Much better--he is recovering spirits and tone very fast. That
leaf-work of yours came at a lucky time. I like to see him looking
out for a curious fern in the hedgerows--the pursuit has quite
brightened him up."

"And he does it so thoroughly," said Margaret. "Ethel fancies it is
rather frivolous of him, I believe; but it amuses me to see how men
give dignity to what women make trifling. He will know everything
about the leaves, hunts up my botany books, and has taught me a
hundred times more of the construction and wonders of them than I
ever learned."

"Ay," said the doctor, "he has been talking a good deal to me about
vegetable chemistry. He would make a good scientific botanist, if he
were to be nothing else. I should be glad if he sticks to it as a
pursuit--'tis pretty work, and I should like to have gone further
with it, if I had ever had time for it."