When Jerome entered the room the combined odor of those leather-bound folios and the doctor's drugs smote his nostrils, as from a curious brewing of theoretical and applied wisdom in one pot.
"Take a seat," said the girl, "and I will speak to the doctor." Then she went out, with the vain, pleased simper of a child who has said her lesson well.
Jerome sat down and looked about him.

He had been in the room several times before, but his awe of it preserved its first strangeness for him.

He eyed the books on the walls, then the great bottles visible through the glass doors on the cupboard shelves.

Those bottles were mostly of a cloudy green or brown, but one among them caught the light and shone as if filled with liquid rubies.

That was valerian, but Jerome did not know it; he only thought it must be a very strong medicine to have such a bright color.