“Marian is a dear,” murmured Mrs. Bassett.

She was a murmurous person, whose speech was marked by a curious rising inflection, that turned most of her statements into interrogatories.  To Sylvia this habit seemed altogether wonderful and elegant.

“Suppose we take a walk along the lake path, Sylvia.  We can pretend we’re looking for wild flowers to have an excuse.  I’ll leave word for Marian to follow.”

They set off along the path together.  Mrs. Bassett had never seemed friendlier, and Sylvia was flattered by this mark of kindness.  Mrs. Bassett trailed her parasol, using it occasionally to point out plants and flowers that called for comment.  She knew the local flora well, and kept a daybook of the wildflowers found in the longitude and latitude of Waupegan; and she was an indefatigable ornithologist, going forth with notebook and opera glass in hand.  She spoke much of Thoreau and Burroughs and they were the nucleus of her summer library; she said that they gained tang and vigor from their winter hibernation at the cottage.  Her references to nature were a little self-conscious, as seems inevitable with such devotees, but we cannot belittle the accuracy of her knowledge or the cleverness of her detective skill in apprehending the native flora.  She found red and yellow columbines tucked away in odd corners, and the blue-eyed-Mary with its four petals—­two blue and two white—­as readily as Sylvia’s inexperienced eye discovered the more obvious ladies’-slipper and jack-in-the-pulpit.  To-day Mrs. Bassett rejoiced in the discovery of the season’s first puccoon, showing its orange-yellow cluster on a sandy slope.  She plucked a spray of the spreading dogbane, but only that she might descant upon it to Sylvia; it was a crime, Mrs. Bassett said, to gather wild flowers, which were never the same when transplanted to the house.  When they came presently to a rustic seat Mrs. Bassett suggested that they rest there and watch the lake, which had always its mild excitements.

“You haven’t known Aunt Sally a great while, I judge, Sylvia?  Of course you haven’t known any one a great while!”

“No; I never saw her but once before this visit.  That was when grandfather took me to see her in Indianapolis a year ago.  She and grandfather are old friends.”

“All the old citizens of Indiana have a kind of friendship among themselves.  Somebody said once that the difference between Indiana and Kentucky is, that while the Kentuckians are all cousins we Hoosiers are all neighbors.  But of course so many of us have had Kentucky grandfathers that we understand the Kentuckians almost as well as our own people.  I used to meet your grandfather now and then at Aunt Sally’s; but I can’t say that I ever knew him.  He’s a delightful man and it’s plain that his heart is centred in you.”

“There was never any one like grandfather,” said Sylvia with feeling.

“I suppose that as he and Aunt Sally are such old friends they must have talked a good deal together about you and your going to college.  It would be quite natural.”