Helen's letters had ceased; but Anne jotted down a faithful record of the events of the days for her inspection when she came. Rumors varied at Caryl's respecting Mrs. Lorrington. Now her grandfather had died, and left her everything; and now he had miraculously recovered, and deeded his fortune to charitable institutions. Now he had existed without nourishment for weeks, and now he had the appetite of ten, and exhibited the capabilities of a second Methuselah. But in the mean time Helen was still absent. Under these circumstances, Anne, if she had been older, and desirous, might have collected voluminous expressions of opinion as to the qualities, beauty, and history, past and present, of the absent one from her dearest friends on earth. But the dearest friends on earth had not the habit of talking to this young girl as a companion and equal; to them she was simply that "sweet child," that "dear fresh-faced school-girl," to whom they confided only amiable platitudes. So Anne continued to hold fast undisturbed her belief in her beautiful Helen--that strong, grateful, reverent feeling which a young girl often cherishes for an older woman who is kind to her. One still, hazy morning Miss Vanhorn announced her programme for the day. She intended to drive over to the county town, and Anne was to go with her six miles of the distance, and be left at a certain glen, where there was a country saw-mill. They had been there together several times, and had made acquaintance with the saw-miller, his wife, and his brood of white-headed children. The object of the present visit was a certain fern--the Camptosorus, or walking-leaf--which Miss Vanhorn had recently learned grew there, or at least had grown there within the memory of living botanists. That was enough. Anne was to search for the plant unflinchingly (the presence of the mill family being a sufficient protection) throughout the entire day, and be in waiting at the main-road crossing at sunset, when her grandaunt's carriage would stop on its return home. In order that there might be no mistake as to the time, she was allowed to wear one of Miss Vanhorn's watches. There were fourteen of them, all heirlooms, all either wildly too fast in their motions or hopelessly too slow, so that the gift was an embarrassing one. Anne knew that if she relied upon the one intrusted to her care, she would be obliged to spend about three hours at the crossing to allow for the variations in one direction or the other which might erratically attack it during the day. But her hope lay in the saw-miller's bright-faced little Yankee clock. At their early breakfast she prepared a lunch for herself in a small basket, and before Caryl's had fairly awakened, the old coupé rolled away from the door, bearing aunt and niece into the green country. When they reached the wooded hills at the end of the six miles, Anne descended with her basket, her digging trowel, and her tin plant case. She was to go over every inch of the