Often the Ethels and Dorothy extended their walk to the next field and to the woods and rocks at the back.  The Clarks had learned nothing more about their Cousin Emily, although they had a man searching records and talking with the older people of a number of towns in Nebraska.  He reported that he was of the opinion that either the child had died when young or that she had moved to a considerable distance from the town of her birth or that she had been adopted and had taken the name of her foster parents.  At any rate consultation of records of marriages and deaths in several counties had revealed to him no Emily Leonard.

The Clarks were quite as depressed by this outcome of the search as was Mrs. Smith, but they had instructed the detective to continue his investigation.  Meanwhile they begged Dorothy and her cousins to enjoy the meadow and woods as much as they liked.

The warm moist days of April tempted the girls to frequent searches for wild flowers.  They found the lot a very gold mine of delight.  There was so much variety of soil and of sunshine and of shadow that plants of many different tastes flourished where in the meadow across the road only a few kinds seemed to live.  It was with a hearty shout they hailed the first violets.

“Here they are, here they are!” cried Ethel Blue.  “Aunt Marion said she was sure she saw some near the brook.  She quoted some poetry about it—­

    “’Blue ran the flash across;
      Violets were born!’”

“That’s pretty; what’s the rest of it?” asked Ethel Brown, on her knees taking up some of the plants with her trowel and placing them in her basket so carefully that there was plenty of earth surrounding each one to serve as a nest when it should be put into Helen’s wild flower bed.

“It’s about something good happening when everything seems very bad,” explained Ethel Blue.  “Browning wrote it.”

    “Such a starved bank of moss
      Till, that May morn,
    Blue ran the flash across: 
      Violets were born!

    “Sky—­what a scowl of cloud
      Till, near and far,
    Ray on ray split the shroud: 
      Splendid, a star!

    “World—­how it walled about
      Life with disgrace
    Till God’s own smile came out: 
      That was thy face!”

“It’s always so, isn’t it!” approved Dorothy.  “And the more we think about the silver lining to every cloud the more likely it is to show itself.”

“What’s this delicate white stuff?  And these tiny bluey eyes?” asked Ethel Blue, who was again stooping over to examine the plants that enjoyed the moist positions near the stream.

“The eyes are houstonia—­Quaker ladies.  We must have a clump of them.  Saxifrage, Helen said the other was.  She called my attention the other day to some they had at school to analyze.  It has the same sort of stem that the hepatica has.”

[Illustration:  Yellow Adder’s Tongue]