LOLLY WILLOWES
that mugwort tea would not have made her sick. She begged for leave to make trial of it, but to no avail; Nannie's prohibition was as absolute as that of her mistress. But Nannie had not lost her faith., She explained that the night mugwort for the purpose was a very special kind that did not grow in Somerset, but at the gates of the cobbler in her native village the mugwort grew fair enough. Long after this discussion had taken place, Laura found in Aubrey's Miscellany a passage quoted from Pliny which told how Artemis had revealed the virtues of mugwort to the dreaming Pericles. She hastened to tell Nannie of this. Nannie was gratified, but she would not admit that her faith needed any buttressing. "Those Greeks didn't know everything!" she said, and drove a needle into her red cloth emery case, which was shaped like a strawberry and spotted over with small yellow beads.
For nearly ten years Laura kept house for Everard and James. Nothing happened to disturb the easy serenity of their days except the birth of first one daughter and then another to Henry and Caroline, and this did not disturb it much. Everard, so happy in a daughter, was prepared to be happy in granddaughters also.
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