ve out to-morrow and look for it, grandaunt," said Anne.

"No," replied Miss Vanhorn, firmly; "that orchid must be found to-day,
while Mr.--Mr.--"

"Sloane," said the minister, affably.

"--while Mr. Stone is with you to point out the exact locality. I desire
you to go with him immediately, Anne; _this_ is a matter of importance."

"It is about two miles up the mountain," objected the missionary, loath
to leave the festival.

"Anne is not afraid of two short miles," replied the old woman,
inflexibly. "And as for yourself, Mr. Doane, no doubt you will be glad
to abandon this scene of idle frivolity." And then the Reverend Ezra, a
little startled by this view of the case, yielded, and sought his hat
and cane.

This conversation had taken place at one side. Mr. Dexter, however,
talking ceremoniously with old Mrs. Bannert, overheard it, and
immediately thought of a plan by which it might be made available for
his own purposes. The picnic had not given him much satisfaction so far;
it had been too languid. With all his effort, he could not quite enter
into the continuous indolence of Caryl's. True, he had taken Anne from
Heathcote, thus checking for the moment that gentleman's lazy supremacy,
at least in one quarter; but there were other quarters, and Heathcote
was now occupying the one which Dexter himself coveted most of all,
namely, the seat next to Rachel Bannert. Rachel was a widow, and
uncomfortably dependent upon her mother-in-law. The elder Mrs. Bannert
was sharp-eyed as a hawk, wise as a serpent, and obstinate as a
hedge-hog; Rachel as soft-voiced and soft-breasted as a dove; yet the
latter intended to have, and did in the end have, the Bannert estate,
and in the mean time she "shared her mother-in-law's home." There were
varying opinions as to the delights of that home.

Dexter, fretted by Heathcote's unbroken conversation with Rachel, and
weary of the long inaction of the morning, now proposed that they should
all go in search of the orchid; his idea was that at least it would
break up existing proximities, and give them all something to do. Lunch
had been prolonged to the utmost extent of its vitality, and the
participants were in the state of nerveless leaves in Indian summer,
ready to float away on the first breeze. They strolled off, therefore,
all save the elder ladies, through the wood, led by the delighted Ezra,
who had that "God-bless-you-all-my-friends" air with which many worthy
people are afflic