Mrs.Bassett had never seemed friendlier, and Sylvia was flattered by this mark of kindness.

Mrs.
Bassett trailed her parasol, using it occasionally to point out plants and flowers that called for comment.

She knew the local flora well, and kept a daybook of the wildflowers found in the longitude and latitude of Waupegan; and she was an indefatigable ornithologist, going forth with notebook and opera glass in hand.

She spoke much of Thoreau and Burroughs and they were the nucleus of her summer library; she said that they gained tang and vigor from their winter hibernation at the cottage.
Her references to nature were a little self-conscious, as seems inevitable with such devotees, but we cannot belittle the accuracy of her knowledge or the cleverness of her detective skill in apprehending the native flora.

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.