It seemed to her father as if the
malign influence,--evil spirit it might almost be called,--which had
pervaded her being, had at last been driven forth or exorcised, and that
these tears were at once the sign and the pledge of her redeemed nature.
But now she was to be soothed, and not excited. After her tears she
slept again, and the look her face wore was peaceful as never before.
Old Sophy met the Doctor at the door and told him all the circumstances
connected with the extraordinary attack from which Elsie had suffered.
It was the purple leaves, she said. She remembered that Dick once
brought home a branch of a tree with some of the same leaves on it, and
Elsie screamed and almost fainted then. She, Sophy, had asked her, after
she had got quiet, what it was in the leaves that made her feel so bad.
Elsie couldn't tell her,--didn't like to speak about it,--shuddered
whenever Sophy mentioned it.
This did not sound so strangely to the old Doctor as it does to some
who listen to this narrative. He had known some curious examples of
antipathies, and remembered reading of others still more singular.
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