Marjorie, who had run on in advance and was not by any means ignorant of the flora of the neighbourhood, had secured three specimens, a late Valerian, an early spotted Touch-me-not, and a little bunch of Blue-eyed-grass.  Coristine took them from her with thanks, told her their names and stowed them away in his candle box.  The zeal to discover and add to the collection grew upon all the party, the Captain included.  Near the water, where the Valerian and the Touch-me-not grew, Marjorie Carruthers found the Snake-head, with its large white flowers on a spike.  Another little Carruthers brought to the botanist the purple Monkey flower, but the Captain excelled his youthful nephew by adding to the collection the rarer and smaller yellow one.  Then the lawyer himself discovered another yellow flower, the Gratiola or Hedge Hyssop, at the moment when Marjorie rejoiced in the modest little Speedwell.  Once more, the Captain distinguished himself by finding in the grass the yellow Wood-Sorrel, with its Shamrock leaves, which, when Marjorie saw, she seemed to recognize in part.  Then, crossing the stepping stones of the brook, she ran, far up the hill on the other side, to a patch of shady bush, from which she soon returned victorious, with a bunch of the larger Wood-Sorrel in her hand, to exhibit the identity of its leaves, and its delicate white blossoms with their pinky-purple veins.  By the time the other juveniles brought in the blue Vervain, pink Fireweed and tall yellow Mullein, the botanist thought it about time to go home and press his specimens.

Miss Carmichael met the scientists at the door, looking, of course, for the children and Uncle Thomas, who was never called by his Christian name, Ezekiel.  Learning the nature of the work in hand, she volunteered the use of the breakfast-room table.  The lawyer brought down his strap press, and, carefully placing oiled paper between the dried specimens and the semi-porous sheets that were to receive the new ones, proceeded to lay them out.  The new specimens had all to be examined by the addition to the botanical party, their botanical and vulgar names to be recited to her, and, then, the arranging began.  This was too monotonous work for the Captain, who carried the children off for a romp on the verandah.  Marjorie stayed for a minute or so after they were gone, and then remembered that she had not given papa his morning button-hole.  Coristine was clumsy with the flowers, owing to the gloves he said, so Miss Carmichael had to spread them out on the paper under his direction, and hold them in their place, while he carefully and gradually pressed another sheet over them.  Of course his fingers could not help coming into contact with hers.  “Confound those gloves!” he thought aloud.

“Mr. Coristine, if you are going to use such language, and to speak so ungratefully of Mr. Errol’s gloves, which I put on your hands, I shall have to leave you to put up your specimens the best way you can.”