a. 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."

Sylvia had not thought of this. She was the least guileful of beings,
this Sylvia, and she saw nothing amiss in these inquiries.

"I suppose they may have done so; and Mrs. Owen talked to me about going
to college when I visited her."

"Oh! If _she_ undertook to persuade you, then it is no wonder you
decided to go. She's a very powerful pleader, as she would put it
herself."

"It wasn't just that way, Mrs. Bassett. I think grandfather had already
persuaded me. Mrs. Owen didn't know of it till afterward; but she seemed
to like the idea. Her ideas about girls and women are very interesting."

"Yes? She has a very decided way of expressing herself. I should
imagine, though,