But it was especially at lunch that the Reverend Ezra shone forth; rising to the occasion, he brought forth all the gallant speeches of his youth, which had much the air of his grandfather's Green Mountain musket. Some of his phrases Anne recognized: Miss Lois used them. The young girl was pained to see how out of place he was, how absurd in his well-intentioned efforts; and she therefore drew him a little apart, and strove to entertain him herself. She had known plain people on the island, and had experienced much of their faithful goodness and generosity in times of trouble; it hurt her to have him ridiculed. It came out, during this conversation, that he knew something of botany, and on the strength of this passport she took him to Miss Vanhorn. The Reverend Ezra really did understand the flora of the district, through which he had journeyed many times in former years on his old mare; Miss Vanhorn's sharp questions brought out what he knew, and gave him also the grateful sensation of imparting valuable information. He now appeared quite collected and sensible. He mentioned, after a while, that an orchid grew in these very woods at some distance up the mountain—an orchid which was rare. Miss Vanhorn had never seen that particular orchid in its wild state; a flush rose in her cheek.
"We can drive 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 afflicted. The apparent self-effacement effected by good-breeding, even in the wicked, is certainly more agreeable to an ordinary world than the unconscious egotism of a large class of the good.
After a quarter of an hour the woodman's trail they were following turned and went up the mountain-side. No one save Anne and the missionary had the slightest intention of walking two miles to look for a flower, but they were willing to stroll on for a while. They came to the main road, and crossed it, making many objections to its being there, with its commonplace daylight, after the shade, flickering sunbeams, and vague green vistas of the forest. But on this road, in the dust, a travelling harp-player was trudging along, accompanied by a wizened little boy and a still more wizened monkey.