was personally concerned, however, all bitterness and suspicion had
speedily passed away; and there remained still the careless and neglectful
good-will, and the prescriptive reverence, not altogether reverential,
which the world heedlessly awards to the unfortunate individual who
outlives his generation.

And now that we have shown the reader sufficiently, or at least to the
best of our knowledge, and perhaps at tedious length, what was the present
position of Grandsir Dolliver, we may let our story pass onward, though at
such a pace as suits the feeble gait of an old man.

The peculiarly brisk sensation of this morning, to which we have more than
once alluded, enabled the Doctor to toil pretty vigorously at his
medicinal herbs,--his catnip, his vervain, and the like; but he did not
turn his attention to the row of mystic plants, with which so much of
trouble and sorrow either was, or appeared to be, connected. In truth, his
old soul was sick of them, and their very fragrance, which the warm
sunshine made strongly perceptible, was odious to his nostrils. But the
spicy, 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