"And they haven't the least idea what became of it," remarked Maurice.

"I think it was stolen," said Miss Betty, "although I acknowledge there is something mysterious about it. Cousin Thomas was subject to attacks of heart failure, and was found one evening unconscious in his arm-chair before the open door of the safe, where he kept his valuables. Morgan had left him an hour before, apparently as well as usual. He was discovered in this condition by old Milly, who is honest as the day, and she sent at once for Dr. Fair, next door, but it was some time before he could be found, and in the excitement it seems quite possible the ring might have been stolen. After Dr. Fair had partially revived the old man, he noticed the open safe and closed it. Cousin Thomas never regained consciousness entirely, and died the next day. It must have been a week before the ring was missed. The strange thing is that there were jewels of greater value in the safe, which were not disturbed."

"Don't you wish your uncle would give it to you if it is found?" Charlotte asked Rosalind.

"In his will Mr. Gilpin said he left the ring to Allan, who was aware of his wishes in regard to it. I have no idea what those wishes were, but I hardly think he had Rosalind in mind," Miss Betty said, smiling.

"Uncle Allan must know what he meant. How strange!"

"Like a story, isn't it?" said Belle.

"Have they looked everywhere for it?" continued Rosalind.

"Yes; the most, thorough search has been made, to no effect."

The rest of the evening was spent in games, and from the laughing that went on, Miss Betty's guests must have enjoyed themselves. When Martin came for her and Rosalind said good night to her new friends, she did not feel like the same girl who had had to go to the magician to be cheered a few days ago. The face she lifted to the stars as she walked home was very bright indeed.

Grandmamma and Aunt Genevieve sat in the hall.

"Have you had a pleasant time?" Mrs. Whittredge asked.

"A beautiful time, grandmamma. I do like to know people. And Miss Betty—I mean Cousin Betty—told us about the lost ring and—was she my aunt?—Patricia? Did you ever see her, grandmamma?"

"Yes, a number of times. She visited at our house when I was a child. She died a few years after my marriage. Your Aunt Genevieve is thought to resemble the miniature done of her in her girlhood."

Rosalind looked in the direction of the arm-chair where her aunt half reclined, her eyes on a book, her clear profile in relief against the dark leather, the mellow lamp-light bringing out the copper tints in her hair. "Then I know she must have been lovely," she said.

Mrs. Whittredge laughed, and Genevieve lifted her eyes to ask, "What is that?"

"Rosalind is sure Patricia Gilpin must have been handsome if you resemble her," her mother replied.

Genevieve shrugged her shoulders, and her lips curled a little, although she smiled; "Thank you, Rosalind," she said.

"I don't believe," thought Rosalind, as she slowly prepared for bed, "that Miss Patricia—Aunt Patricia—looked as if she didn't care about anything. She bore hard things bravely, Miss Betty said, and I believe people who do that have a kind look." Here her glance fell upon the miniature on her dressing-table. The sweet eyes smiled on her. Taking it up she pressed it to her lips; "Like you, my dear beautiful," she whispered.



CHAPTER TENTH.

CELIA.

"One out of suits with fortune."

"O Celia!" called Miss Betty Bishop, from her front door, "come in a minute. I had a tea party last night, and I want to send your mother some of Sophy's marshmallow cake. I am so glad you happened by," she added, as Celia came up the walk, "I was wondering how I should get it to her."

"It is very kind of you, Miss Betty," said Celia, following her into the dining room.

"There is no kindness about it," asserted Miss Betty, opening the cake box. "I am just proud of Sophy's good things and like to make other people envy me."

"That is not hard," Celia answered, thinking that life seemed easy and pleasant in this snug little house. Miss Betty had had her hard times, she knew, but the troubles of others are apt to seem easier to bear than one's own, just as in bad weather the best walking is always on the other side of the street.

Celia was warm and tired, and the dim, cool room was grateful to her as she sat resting in silence while Miss Betty fluttered back and forth.

"Perhaps you'll think I'd better mind my own business," she said, returning after a moment's absence, "but here is something I saw in the Gazette. It might be worth trying."

Celia knew by heart the advertisement held out to her. "Work at home. Fifteen dollars a week made with ease, etc." She accepted it meekly, however, not wishing to hurt her friend's feelings.

"Talking about minding your own business," continued Miss Betty, "in my experience it does not pay. I once saw Cousin Anne Gilpin looking at taffeta at Moseley's, and I knew as well as I knew my name that the piece she selected wouldn't wear. At first I thought I'd tell her; then I decided it was none of my business,—Cousin Anne was old enough to know about the quality of silk. And what do you think? She sent me a waist pattern off it for a Christmas gift!"

Celia laughed as she rose to go. "Thank you for the cake, even if it isn't a kindness. Mother will enjoy it," she said.

"You haven't noticed my hall paper," Miss Betty remarked, escorting her visitor to the door. "I don't expect you to say it is pretty, for it isn't. I have to confess wall paper is too much for me. This entry is so small I could not put anything big and bright on it, so I thought I was getting the very thing when I selected this,—and what does it look like? Nothing in the world but a clean calico dress. Now it is done I see it would have been better with plain paper."

"It is clean and unobtrusive," Celia agreed, smiling. Her smiles were a little forced this morning, it was easy to see; and Miss Betty, laying a kind hand on her arm, said, "Don't worry too much, Celia. I know something about hard times, and you will work through after a while."

Celia felt the tears rising, and she left Miss Betty with an abruptness that made her ashamed of herself as she recalled it. After the exertion of climbing the hill she stopped to rest on the rustic seat just inside her own gate. "I wonder," she asked herself, "if there is anything much harder to bear than seeing a house you love going to ruin and not to be able to save it."

A branch of the honeysuckle that twined about the gate-post touched her shoulder, as if to remind her there was still some sweetness in life after all; but she did not heed it, nor the rose vines and clematis which made the old gray house beautiful in spite of needed repairs. Celia saw only rotting woodwork and sagging steps. She thought how the flower garden had been her father's pride, and how in his spare moments, few as they were, he was sure to be found digging and trimming and training, with the happiness of the born gardener. Ah, those days! She remembered the half-incredulous wonder with which she had been used to hear people speak of the certainty of trouble. She had felt so certain that joy overbalanced sorrow, that smiles were more frequent than tears. Now she understood, since she had tried to hide her own grief under a smiling face.

From her babyhood she had been her father's companion and confidante, driving about the country with him, interested in all that concerned his large practice. A warm-hearted, impulsive man, open handed to the point of extravagance, Dr. Fair had had few enemies and many friends; and loving his work, life had been full of joy to him. In contrast with those happy years the bitterness of his last days seemed doubly cruel to Celia. Whenever she was tired and discouraged, the memory of that dark time rose before her.

She had been only a child when Patterson Whittredge left home, but she could remember how warmly her father had taken his side, and how this had caused the first coolness between him and his boyhood friend, Judge Whittredge. The judge was influenced by his wife, and between the stubborn doctor and imperious Mrs. Whittredge there had been no love lost.

The storm had passed after a while, and when the judge's health began to fail Dr. Fair had been called in. But Mrs. Whittredge had not forgotten, and the doctor's position was not an easy one. Only his devotion to his old friend had kept him from giving up the case at the beginning. The Gilpin will and her father's testimony to the old man's sanity had added to the trouble, and upon this had come the accusation which, whispered about, had broken the doctor's heart. Harassed by the hard times and the failure of investments, denied a place at the bedside of his friend, he had fallen an easy victim to pneumonia, outliving Judge Whittredge only a few days. The memory of it lay like lead upon Celia's heart.

"I have left you nothing but a heritage of misfortune, Celia," had been his last words to her.

"Don't think of that, father; I'll manage," she answered; and she had tried, but the solving of the problem was costing her the bloom of her youth. There were the two brothers to be educated, and a delicate, almost invalid mother to be cared for, and an income that would little more than pay the taxes on their home. To sell or rent it was not at present practicable, and she could not take boarders, for no one boarded in Friendship. Neither could she leave to try her fortune in the city, so she had been doing whatever her hand found to do. Sewing, embroidering, a little teaching, and, in season, pickling and preserving. Friends had been kind, but Celia was proud and determined to fight her own battle, and sometimes, as this morning, kindness made her burden seem harder to bear.

The worst of it was the root of bitterness in her heart. She could never forgive Mrs. Whittredge. Few guessed the intensity hidden beneath Celia's gentle manner. Only now and then a spark from her dark blue eyes revealed it. The general construction put upon her proud reserve was that she was unsociable.

There is no loneliness like that of the unforgiving heart. Celia had never felt it so strongly as after her meeting with Rosalind Whittredge in the cemetery. There had been something in the soft gaze of the gray eyes that she could not forget. It had made her take up the rose again after she flung it away and carry it home with her.

But she must not linger here any longer. There was an order from the Exchange in the city which should be promptly filled if she hoped for others. As she rose she confronted Morgan entering the gate.

"Good morning," he said, and there was an odd sort of embarrassment in his manner as he added, "Some of your window frames need fixing, Miss Celia."

She smiled and shook her head. "Can't afford it."

"Miss Celia, let me do it, I've lots of time, and the doctor was very good to me," he said.

Again Celia shook her head, but the hurt look on Morgan's face made her relent. "Well, perhaps the worst ones," she spelled. She would trust to being able to make it up to him sometime.

"That's right," he exclaimed, joyfully, adding, as he turned to go, "Don't you worry, Miss Celia. There's good in it somewhere."



CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

MAKING FRIENDS.

"Is not that neighborly?"



Miss Betty's tea party was the beginning of a new and happier state of affairs for Rosalind; one pleasant thing followed another. There were letters from the travellers, long and delightful and full of the genial spirit of the Forest, making her more than ever certain that they and she were alike journeying beneath its shelter, and at some turn of the road would surely meet again.

Mrs. Whittredge also had a letter, "I trust you will not keep Rosalind secluded," her son wrote. "I want her to have companions of her own age, and to learn to know and love the old town as I loved it. She has lived too much with Louis and me and story books; it is time she was waking up."

This explains why the Roberts children and the Partons received special invitations to call on Rosalind. Friendship began to seem to her a very different place as her acquaintance with it grew and neighborly relations were established with Maurice and Katherine. The gap in the hedge became a daily meeting-place, and grew slowly, but steadily, wider.

A few days after the tea party, Katherine asked Rosalind to go out to the creek with her, and on the way they stopped for Belle. While she went to find her hat, Rosalind made the acquaintance of the colonel and several dogs. Then the three strolled along the wide street, under the shade of tall maples, past pleasant gardens and inviting houses, until the street turned into a country road, and before them was Red Hill and the little bridge over Friendly Creek at its foot.

Under the bridge the water rippled and splashed over the stones, and out of sight, back somewhere among the trees, it could be heard rushing over a dam. The children seated themselves on a bit of pebbly beach.

"How nice to be near the real country!" Rosalind exclaimed. "At home we are near the park, but that is not the real country. We have to go miles to get there."

"But there are such lovely stores and things in the city," said Katherine.

"Still, you can't go about by yourself, as you can here," Rosalind answered; and Belle added, "I like to go to the city for a little while, but I'd rather live in Friendship, where the houses aren't so close together."

As they sat there, throwing stones in the water and writing in the sand, Rosalind heard a great deal about school, which would close next week,—how the girls had rushed to the window to see her and had lost their recess, and how Belle had been sent to the office, besides, for making chalk dishes. It was all very amusing, but she could not understand why the girls wanted to see her.

"Well, you know they are all interested in your house, and in Miss Genevieve; and then everybody was surprised at your coming to visit your grandmother."

"I can't see why," Rosalind said, opening her eyes.

"Oh, well—because you never had before, you know." Belle's manner was hesitating, as if she felt conscious of being on dangerous ground.

What she said was certainly true. Rosalind herself did not exactly understand it. She knew only that there had been some reason why her father had not visited his old home for many years. She wondered if these girls knew more about it than she.

"You see, you are something new," Belle added, laughing. "Didn't Miss Celia scold us that morning, Katherine?"

"Why, no, Belle, she didn't exactly scold," said Katherine.

"She didn't throw back her head and frown and say 'Young ladies, I am amazed!'"—here Bell gave an excellent imitation of Mrs. Graham's manner—"so you don't call it scolding. She just said, 'Girls, I don't know what to think!' and we felt as mean! I love Miss Celia."

"So do I," echoed Katherine.

"Is she one of your teachers?" Rosalind asked.

"Yes; she is Miss Celia Fair. She teaches drawing and sometimes keeps study hour, and she is as sweet as she can be," Belle concluded, with enthusiasm.

The name brought to mind one of Rosalind's greatest puzzles,—the hillside, the young lady who looked as if she might be as Belle described her—sweet; the strange incident of the rose, and Aunt Genevieve's words, "We have nothing to do with the Fairs."

"I saw her once," she remarked gravely.

"I forgot the Fairs and the Whittredges don't speak. Perhaps you know about it," said Belle.

Rosalind shook her head.

"I think it was about the will; wasn't it, Katherine? Mrs. Whittredge wanted to break it because she thought Mr. Gilpin was crazy, but Dr. Fair said he wasn't, and testified in court."

Rosalind listened with interest. "Isn't Dr. Fair dead?" she asked.

"Yes. He used to be our doctor, and I liked him so much."

"The Fairs have lost all their money now, so Miss Celia has to teach and do all sorts of things," Katherine remarked.

"Her name belongs to the Forest," thought Rosalind, looking at the ripples, Belle had thrown herself back and was gazing at the sky from under her hat brim; Katherine was busy with a collection of pebbles; the stillness was broken only by the hum of insects and the murmur of Friendly Creek. Suddenly Rosalind seemed to hear with perfect distinctness what it said,

"Be fr-ie-nds, be fr-ie-nds," with a little trill on the words.

From experience she knew very little of unfriendliness. All this about quarrels and having nothing to do with people was new to her. As she considered it she remembered that Oliver hated Orlando, and Rosalind's uncle had treated her and her father unkindly, in the story. "But it all came right in the end," she told herself, "when they met in the Forest." It was a cheering thought, and she smiled over it.

"What are you smiling at?" Belle asked, sitting up.

Rosalind's eyes had a far-away look as she replied, "I was thinking about the Forest."

"What forest?" Belle began to ask, when a curly dog rushed down upon them, and on the bridge above their heads they saw the magician waving his hand.

"Well, Curly Q. How are you?" cried Rosalind.

"There's Morgan," said Belle; "you know him, don't you?"

"Of course I do. I took tea with him last week," Rosalind answered, laughing.

"And, Belle, she calls him the 'magician,'" Katherine said.

"Do you? Why?"

"Because he is one. Didn't you know it?" Rosalind danced up the slope, with Curly Q. after her.

"Rosalind says you are a magician. Are you?" Belle spelled rapidly when they had joined Morgan on the bridge.

The old man's eyes twinkled as he replied, "That's a secret; you mustn't tell anybody."

"Ask him if he knows about the Forest," said Rosalind.

Belle asked the question.

Morgan laughed. "'Where the birds sing—'" he quoted.

"Tell me about it, please," begged Belle. "Does Katherine know?"

Rosalind promised she would sometime; and as Katherine did not know either, and as it was growing late, Belle agreed to wait.

It was rather an odd and pleasant sight, if any one had stopped to think of it—the old man with his bright, wistful eyes, his tool box on his shoulder, and his three companions, walking home together. Demure Katherine, dainty Rosalind, saucy Belle,—all as merry as merry could be,—and Curly Q. running in and out among them in an ecstasy of delight, and at imminent danger of upsetting somebody.

"Well, Pigeon, how do you like your new friend?" asked the colonel, as his daughter took her seat beside him on the door-step.

Belle gazed thoughtfully across the lawn. "I like her," she answered, "but she is funny. I suppose it is because she hasn't gone much to school. She isn't like Charlotte, or Katherine, or me. She isn't prim, and yet—it is queer, father, but she makes me feel as I do when I am with Miss Celia—like behaving."

The colonel laughed his hearty ha, ha! "I hope you'll cultivate her society," he said, adding, "she is like Pat, as high-toned a fellow as ever lived. He was something of a dreamer, too, and this child has the eyes of a poet."

"They are gray," remarked Belle. "But I know what you mean, father; she looks as if she saw things far away. She was looking so this afternoon, and when I asked her what she was thinking about she said 'the forest.' I don't know what she meant, but Morgan knew."

"You have plenty of sense," said her father, looking fondly upon her.

"Of course I have, I am your child," laughed Belle, jumping up to give him a hug.



CHAPTER TWELFTH.

THE GILPIN PLACE.

"This is the Forest of Arden."



Rosalind, walking in the garden next morning, heard her name called from the other side of the hedge.

"Is that you, Maurice?" she asked, bending to peep through the narrow opening where they had first become acquainted.

"Yes; don't you want to go up to the Gilpin place?"

"I'd rather go there than anywhere," Rosalind assented eagerly, "I am so interested in Aunt Patricia and the ring."

"The house is closed, you know, but the grounds are pretty. I'll meet you at the gate whenever you are ready," Maurice answered.

He considered Rosalind his special friend by right of first acquaintance, and had no thought of allowing Katherine or Belle to get the advantage of him, and for this reason he had planned the expedition. He also wished to talk over "As You Like It" without interruption, and was decidedly provoked when she called to Katherine, who was shelling peas on the side porch, "We are going to the Gilpin place; can't you come when you have finished?"

Katherine, who had tried in vain to find out from Maurice where he was going, was more than delighted at the invitation.

"It would have been nicer if we had stayed to help her," Rosalind remarked, as they walked up the street.

"Girls' work," Maurice growled.

"Well, I am a girl. And why shouldn't boys shell peas? They eat them."

Maurice scorned such logic, but her eyes were so merry it was with an effort he kept himself from smiling.

"Katherine is such a bother," he said.

"I like Katherine; she is so pleasant," Rosalind observed, with a side glance at her companion.

"Perhaps you'd rather go with her and have me stay at home?" he suggested, with much dignity.

"And shell peas?" Rosalind laughed.

What a provoking girl this was! And yet he liked her, and somehow at the vision of himself shelling peas he couldn't help laughing, too, and thus harmony was restored.

After climbing the hill, a good deal of exertion for Maurice with his crutch, they paused to rest on the steps leading up from the gate of the Gilpin place.

Rosalind, looking at the dignified mansion among the trees, felt the atmosphere of mysterious interest that always surrounds a closed and deserted house, particularly an old one upon which several generations have left their impress. She thought of the young and lovely Patricia, and the sailor lover who never came back.

"Do you know, I feel very sorry for Aunt Patricia, Maurice. To have some one you love never come back—it must be very hard. I can understand a little now since father and cousin Louis went away. Miss Betty said she bore it bravely, too."

"It was a long time ago," said Maurice, feeling that it was a waste of emotion to grieve over things that had happened so far back in the past.

"But there is the ring. It is not so very long ago since that was here. Don't you wish we could go into the house and look for it? I believe it is there somewhere;" Rosalind spoke with assurance.

"But they searched every nook and cranny," said Maurice.

"If it were in a story, there would be a secret drawer somewhere. I wonder if Aunt Patricia isn't sorry it is lost." Rosalind sat in silence for a few moments, looking down at the town. "I like Friendship," she said. "There are a great many interesting things happening here, more than ever happen at home."

The Gilpin house stood on an elevation of its own, from which the ground sloped gently in all directions. Its late owner had cared little for flowers and shrubs, but had taken pride in his trees, which still preserved the dignity of their forest days. At the back of the house there was a view of the little winding river, and halfway down the slope a once flourishing vegetable garden had turned itself into a picturesque wilderness of weeds. The charm of it all grew upon Rosalind as they walked about.

"I should like to live here, Maurice. I like it better than our garden—grandmamma's, I mean. Let's sit on the grass, where we can see the river."

Not far from them was the rustic summer-house which Miss Betty had called Patricia's arbor.

"Maurice," Rosalind exclaimed, with conviction in her tone, "this is the Forest of Arden."

"You talk about it as if it were all true, instead of only a story," said Maurice.

"But it is true—one kind of true. Cousin Louis explained it to me once—ever so long ago, when I had a sore throat and couldn't go to the Christmas tree, at the president's. I cried and was dreadfully cross, and wouldn't look at my Christmas things; and after a while he asked me if I should like to live in the Forest of Arden. I was so surprised I stopped crying, and he told me that when we were brave and happy, we made a pleasant place for ourselves, where lovely things could happen, and when we were cross and miserable we made a desert for ourselves, where pleasant things couldn't possibly come about, just as if you want flowers to grow, you have to have good soil.

"Cousin Louis can tell things in a very interesting way, and by and by I began to feel ashamed, and I made up my mind to try it; and when I told father, he said he would try too, and we found it was really true, Maurice. He and Cousin Louis and I—oh, we had such good times! We even told the president about it, and Cousin Louis said he was going to start a secret society of the Forest of Arden. Then he was ill, and everything stopped.

"I know it isn't easy to stay in the Forest always, particularly when you are dreadfully lonesome, but the magician says if you keep on trying you will find the good in it after a while."

"How can there be good in bad things?" Maurice demanded.

"Did you read what was in my book? I know it by heart. 'If we choose, we may walk always in the Forest, where the birds sing and the sunlight sifts through the trees, where, although we sometimes grow footsore and hungry, we know that the goal is sure.' That means it will all come right in the end. Don't you know how, in the story, the people who hated each other all came to be friends in the Forest?"

The sun travelling around the beech tree encroached upon their resting-place, and Maurice proposed moving farther down the slope. "Tell me about the secret society," he said, as they again settled themselves.

"It was a very nice plan," Rosalind answered, clasping her knees and looking up into the tree top. "He told me about it one evening when he wasn't well and had to lie on the sofa, while father did the proofs. Only those could belong who made the best of things and knew the secret of the Forest. We were sure the president would join because he had had a great trouble and was very brave; and there was Mrs. Brown, who had lost all her money, and kept house for us. Then, I didn't have anything much to be brave about, but I have since, for I did so want to go with father and Cousin Louis. Perhaps that doesn't seem much," she added apologetically, "'but small things count,' Cousin Louis said."

"I should think it might," Maurice agreed.

"Aunt Patricia could have belonged," said Rosalind, her eyes still in the tree top. "I wonder if she knew about the Forest?"

Maurice felt stirred by the picture her words called up of a great company of people all bearing hard things bravely. "There is Morgan," he suggested. "It must be hard to be deaf, yet he is always cheerful."

"Yes, indeed, he could belong. He knows the secret of the Forest. And Maurice, you have a beautiful chance to be brave."

Maurice's face grew red, he pushed his crutch impatiently from him. "I haven't been brave," he said.

"No, you haven't," Rosalind acknowledged frankly; "but then you did not know about the Forest. Maurice, let's start a society, you and I, and perhaps some of the others will join. The magician will, I know."

A shrill whistle was heard at this moment.

"It is Jack," said Maurice; and sure enough that individual presently appeared and dropped down beside them, breathless from his run up the hill.

"What are you two doing?" he puffed.

"Talking. How warm you are!" and Rosalind offered her broad-brimmed hat for a fan. "Have you seen anything of Katharine?"

"She and Belle are on the way. Say, what were you talking about? It seemed to be interesting." Jack rolled over on his back and blinked at the sky.

Rosalind looked at Maurice. "Would you tell him?"

"No," was the prompt reply, "he wouldn't care for it." He felt certain harum-scarum Jack would only be bored by the Forest, perhaps would make fun.

Jack turned his face to Rosalind, "Tell me," he urged; "Maurice doesn't know what I like."

"I will, then, as soon as the girls come."

It was not long before Belle was heard calling, and she and Katherine came running across the grass and joined the group under the tree.

"We are waiting for you; Jack wants to hear about the Forest," said Rosalind.

"Yes, you promised to tell us what you meant, and how Morgan came to know about it." Belle cast her hat on the grass and shook back her hair.

Maurice looked discontented. Jack and Belle would think it silly, and Katherine wouldn't understand.

"Maurice knows about it, and perhaps some of the rest of you have read the story of the Forest of Arden," began Rosalind.

Belle had, but Katherine and Jack had not so much as heard of it, so Rosalind told the story of the banished Duke and his followers who lived in the Forest, and were happy because they had learned to make the best of things and to find good even in trouble and disappointment; how Rosalind, the daughter of the Duke, was also banished, and with her cousin and the clown went to seek her father in the Forest; how Orlando, turned out of his home by his cruel elder brother, also went to the Forest in company with his old servant Adam; of their adventures there; and how finally the wicked Duke and the heartless brother, who were pursuing the runaways, came under the spell of the same Forest and repented of their evil deeds; and the story ended in forgiveness and love under the greenwood tree.

It was just the day and place for the story. The joyous, lavish beauty of summer was everywhere around them, and as Rosalind told it her eyes took on the look Belle had described to her father. There was silence after she finished. Jack lay with his head on his arms, looking out on the river; Maurice was drawing beech leaves in his note-book, the discontent all gone from his face; Belle absently plaited the hem of her dress; while Katherine twisted a wreath of honeysuckle around her hat.

"Is that all?" Belle asked, after a little.

"That is the story; then I was telling Maurice about the meaning Cousin Louis found in it."

"Tell us that," said Jack.

Rosalind explained the Forest idea, and the plan for a secret society. This at once appealed to Belle.

"That would be fun," she exclaimed. "We could have 'The Forest' for a watchword, and hold meetings out of doors somewhere."

"Yes; 'under the greenwood tree,'" said Maurice.

"I don't understand," said Katherine. "What are we to do?"

"We promise to bear hard things bravely, and—"

"Let's be like Robin Hood," Belle interrupted, "and help down-trodden people."

"Do you know any?" asked her brother, turning over.

"Jack makes me think of the dormouse in 'Alice,'" laughed Rosalind. "He is always going to sleep and waking up."

"I'll tell you!" cried Belle, "let's search for the ring."

"But we don't know where to look," said Katherine.

"A thing isn't much lost if you know where to look, goosie," answered Maurice.

"You see, it is partly pretend," Rosalind explained. "I think it is a beautiful idea, don't you, boys?" she asked.

"Maurice, are you going to promise to bear hard things bravely?" Jack asked, with a quizzical look. It seemed to tickle him greatly, for he went off into a fit of laughing. "'See, the conquering hero comes,'" he hummed.

Maurice pave him a thump with his crutch. "You aren't much of a hero, either," he said. "Who took the roof off when his tooth was pulled?"

"But that hurt," said Jack, still laughing.

"I am willing to own I have been making an awful fuss, but someway I hadn't thought about it, and I am willing to try if the rest are."

"But I haven't any trouble," said Katherine.

"Everybody has hard things to bear sometimes," replied Rosalind.

"Doesn't Maurice ever snub you?" asked irrepressible Jack.

"What shall we call our society?" Rosalind inquired, looking around the group for suggestions.

Maurice tore a leaf from his note-book and divided it carefully into five parts, handing a slip to each of his companions.

"Now be still for a while and think, and then write down a name."

All was quiet for a time. "Now," said Maurice, "what is yours, Rosalind?"

"The Secret Society of the Forest," said Rosalind.

"Sons and Daughters of the Forest," announced Belle.

"The Forest Society," said Jack.

Katherine had not been able to think of a name. Maurice's was "The Arden Foresters," suggested, he said, by Belle's "Robin Hood."

"I believe it is the best," said Rosalind, and so they all agreed finally, and the new society was named.

"Now we must have a book and write in it what we promise," said Belle.

"Let's appoint Rosalind and Maurice to draw up a—what do you call it?" suggested Jack.

"I know," said Belle; "a constitution."

"I meant to go into Patricia's Arbor, and I forgot," remarked Rosalind, as they walked home together.

"I thought I saw some one sitting there when Belle and I passed," said Katherine.



CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

IN PATRICIA'S ARBOR.

"O, how full of briers is this working-day world."

On this same bright morning when Rosalind for the first time saw the Gilpin place, Celia Fair carried her sewing, a piece of dainty lace work, to the old rustic summer-house. It made some variety in the monotony of things to sit here where she could lift her eyes now and then, and looking far away across the river to the hills, let them rest on a bit of sunny road that for a little space emerged from the shadow to disappear again on its winding way.

On this stretch, of road the sunshine seemed always to lie warm and bright, and to Celia it brought a sense of restfulness. Perhaps in some far-off time the sunlight would again lie on her path.

She loved the old place, and the thought that in all probability it would soon pass into the hands of strangers, troubled her. She had often sat here in Patricia's Arbor, beside old Thomas Gilpin, and listened to his reminiscences. She had been a favorite with the old man, all of the tenderness of whose nature had spent itself upon the wife who lived only a brief time; and in Celia's relationship to her, distant though it was, lay the secret of his regard.

One of her earliest recollections was of taking tea at the Gilpin house in company with Genevieve and Allan Whittredge. Mild, fair-faced Miss Anne and her grim-visaged, cross-grained brother were a strangely assorted pair. Celia's childish soul had been filled with awe on these occasions. She had difficulty in keeping her seat in the stiff old haircloth chairs, or in crossing the polished floor of the drawing-room without slipping.

At one end of this room stood the ancient spinet, long ago the property of her own great-grandmother, which she was told would some day be hers. Celia had been proud of this until Miss Anne, displaying her chief treasures, Patricia's miniature and ring, remarked upon Genevieve's likeness to her great-aunt. Genevieve, with the ring on her finger, looked complacently over her shoulder at the long mirror, and Celia was smitten with sudden envy. A great-grandmother called Saint Cecilia was not half so interesting as a beautiful great-aunt with a romantic love story; and an old and useless spinet not to be compared to a ring like Patricia's. That the ring was to be Genevieve's she never doubted.

Allan had made fun of his sister and treated heirlooms in general with scorn, calling Celia to look at a print of Jonah in knee breeches and shoe buckles, emerging front the mouth of the whale. Allan always saw the fun in things.

Between those days and the present there was a great gulf fixed. She had resolutely put away from her all these memories, and to-day she was annoyed that they should return in such force. They brought only pain to her tired heart.

Her hands fell in her lap, and she gazed with unseeing eyes at the hills. After all, Patricia, mourning her lover, had not known the bitterest sorrow.

The thought of her work, which must be done, aroused her. "What a weak creature I am, thinking my lot harder than that of any one else," she exclaimed, and taking up her needle she determinedly fixed her mind on the present. There was the suit Tom needed, and the grocery bill that should be paid the first of the month. She must work hard and not waste time in regrets. The summer that meant leisure and pleasure for many, meant only added cares for her.

A surprising announcement broke in upon these dreary thoughts: "This is the Forest of Arden!"

The voice was a sweet, girlish one, and came from somewhere behind the arbor, but the vines grew so thick she could not get a glimpse of the speaker. Celia went on with her work, feeling at first a little annoyed that her quiet should be disturbed, yet the suggestion of sylvan joy in the words grew upon her. The Forest of Arden—where they fleeted the time carelessly—what a rest for tired spirits it seemed to offer!

"If we will, we may travel always in the Forest, where the birds sing and the sunlight sifts through the trees—" the same voice repeated. A stir of wind set the leaves rustling, and Celia lost the rest.

"That means it will all come right in the end."

"The people who hated each other all came to be friends in the Forest."

Fragments like these floated in to Celia. Then she heard Maurice Roberta's voice saying, "Let's go farther down the slope." She went to the door of the arbor and looked out. As she had suspected, Maurice's companion was the girl she had encountered in the cemetery, Rosalind carried her hat in her hand, and as they crossed an open space the sunshine turned her hair to gold.

Celia went back to her work. "It will all come right in the end,"—this was what Morgan had told her yesterday; it was strange that this child should cross her path again, and with the same message.

"Even people who hated each other came to be friends in the Forest." To travel always in the Forest! How restful the idea! How would it seem not to hate anybody? To be really at peace? But it was not possible for her.

Her thoughts would persist in dwelling upon Rosalind Whittredge. Again she recalled with shame the impulse that made her scorn the rose. She was glad she had picked it up and carried it home. Why should she have any feeling against Patterson Whittredge's daughter? Had not her father taken Patterson's side in the family trouble over his marriage? Ah, but that was long ago, and it was hard to forget that Rosalind, with her sweet, serious eyes, was after all Mrs. Whittredge's granddaughter, Genevieve's niece.

"I wish she wasn't, and that I could see her and speak to her, and ask her what she means by the Forest," she thought. "She is gentle and sweet; she is not like the Whittredges. Why should I dislike her because she belongs to them? Oh, it is dreadful to hate people!" Celia hid her face in her hands, "but I do—I do," she added.



CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

THE ARDEN FORESTERS

"Like the old Robin Hood of England."

"Article I. This Society shall be called 'The Arden Foresters,'" read Maurice. "That will do, won't it?"

"Yes; and then let's put the object. It doesn't come next in this, but we shan't need so many articles," Rosalind answered, running her finger down the page of a blue bound book.

The committee appointed to draw up a constitution for The Arden Foresters had set about it with great seriousness. Their surroundings may have had something to do with this, for their papers were spread out on the leather-covered table in the directors' room at the bank, immediately under the eye of a former president, whose portrait hung over the mantel-piece, while the large-faced clock on the wall gave forth its majestic "tick, lock."

The blue book which was serving as a model, Rosalind had found on her aunt's table, and asked permission to use.

"Well, then, 'Article II. The object of this Society shall be, To remember the Secret of the Forest; to bear hard things bravely; to search for the ring—' Anything else?"

"Maurice, that is beautiful. Is there anything else?" Rosalind pressed her lips with a forefinger.

"Belle wanted to have 'to help the needy,' or something of the kind."

"The down-trodden," said Rosalind, laughing. "I don't like that, do you?"

"Let's wait; we may think of something after a while. Where shall we meet? That might come next."

"Under the trees at the Gilpin place, and when it rains we can go to Patricia's Arbor. What fun it would be to have a meeting in the rain!" A great pattering on the window-pane emphasized Rosalind's remark.

Maurice wrote busily for a minute, looking up to ask, "What day shall we meet?"

"Let's not say any day, and then we can do as we choose," Rosalind suggested, feeling that the restrictions of a constitution might be burdensome.

Article III then read: "This Society shall hold its meetings at the Gilpin place."

"Maurice, here are qualifications for membership. Ought we to have that?"

"I don't know; what are they?"

Rosalind bent over the book, "Let me see—'Intelligence, character, and—' such a funny word. 'R e c i p r o c i t y'; what is that?"

Maurice looked over her shoulder, "'Rec—' Oh, I know, 'reciprocity.'"

"What does it mean?" Rosalind asked.

"I think it is something political."

"Then we don't want it."

However, as there was a dictionary in the room, it was thought best to consult it.

"Here it is, 'mutual giving and returning,'" Maurice announced, when he found the place.

"'Giving and returning,'" Rosalind repeated; "Maurice, look for 'mutual.'"

"It means almost the same thing,' something reciprocal, in common,'" he said presently.

"Then it means to do things for each other. I like that. Why couldn't we put that in Article II? It means 'helping.'"

"How about qualifications, then?" asked Maurice.

"I don't think I'd have any. We'll only ask the people we want."

So reciprocity was added to Article II. As he wrote, Maurice laughed. "I'll bet they won't any of them know what it means," he said.

"Then Article IV will be the watchword, 'The Forest,'" added Rosalind. "And, Maurice, don't you think it would be nice to choose a leaf for a badge? But perhaps we'd better decide that at the next meeting. Don't you think it is going to be fun?"

Maurice agreed that it was, feeling sure Jack and Belle and Katherine must be impressed with the result of their afternoon's work. He had a new blank-book ready for the constitution, and on the first page he had already written: "The Arden Foresters—Secret Society," and at Rosalind's suggestion he now added the motto, "Good in everything."

They surveyed it with pride, and Rosalind said, "I am just crazy to show it to somebody. Where is Katherine?"

But Maurice thought it wouldn't be fair to the others to show it to her first.

The rain continued to patter against the window. Rosalind sat with her elbows on the table, and her chin in her hands, watching Maurice as he folded the sheet of legal-cap paper on which the constitution was written, and placed it in the book.

"Maurice," she said suddenly, lifting her eyes to the benevolent face of the bank president, "do you know Miss Celia Fair?"

"Miss Celia? Why, of course I do."

"Everybody seems to know everybody in Friendship. It's funny," Rosalind commented thoughtfully. "Then you can tell me just what sort of a person she is."

"She is tip-top; I like Miss Celia," Maurice replied, with emphasis.

"Do you think she is kind?"

"Yes, indeed. The day I felt so badly about not going fishing,—the day you spoke to me through the hedge,—she came in and sat on the step and tried to cheer me up. Oh, yes, Miss Celia is kind."

"But do you think she would be kind to some one she didn't know?" Rosalind persisted.

Maurice looked at her in surprise, she seemed so much in earnest in these inquiries. "How can you be kind to people you don't know?" he asked.

"I'll tell you about it if you won't tell. You see I am not quite sure." Then Rosalind told the incident of her meeting with Miss Fair in the cemetery. "She looked pleasant and as if she wanted to be friends at first, but she didn't say anything after I told her my name, and when I looked back, I am sure—almost sure—saw her throw the rose away."

"Miss Celia wouldn't do a thing like that," Maurice asserted stoutly. "She couldn't have any reason for it; she doesn't know you."

"Do you really think she wouldn't?" Rosalind asked, in a tone of relief. "You know there is a kind of a quarrel between her family and ours,—Belle said so,—and I thought perhaps that had something to do with it; but I am going to try to think I was mistaken about the rose."



While they talked the rain had ceased, and some rays of watery sunshine found their way in at the window.

"Let's go to the magician's and show him the constitution and ask him to join," Rosalind proposed.

Maurice was willing, and without a thought of the clouds they started gayly up the street. They were almost there when Rosalind said, "I believe it is going to rain, and we haven't an umbrella."

"Perhaps we shall have to stay to supper with Morgan," Maurice suggested, laughing.

"I had a very good supper there," said Rosalind. "I don't see why everybody should think it was so very funny in me to go."

"No one else would have done it, that's all."

When they looked in at the door of the magician's shop, he was busy with some scraps of leather. Around him were bottomless chairs, topless tables, and melancholy sofas with sagging springs exposed to view, and in one corner a tall, empty clock-case. With his spectacles on the tip of his nose and a pair of large shears in his hand, Morgan might have sat for the picture of some wonder-working genius. Looking up, he discovered his visitors, and a smile illumined his rugged face, as he waved them a welcome with the big shears. He was never too busy for company.

"Come in, come in," he said; and jumping up he got out a feather duster and whisked off a chair for Rosalind, remarking that dust didn't hurt boys.

Rosalind laid the book on the table among the scraps of leather, open at the page where Maurice had written the name of the society and the motto. Pointing to it, they explained that they wished him to join.

Adjusting his spectacles, the magician carefully read the constitution.

"The Secret of the Forest? What's that?" he asked.

Rosalind pointed to the motto, whereupon he nodded approvingly, and went on. "Search for the ring—" he looked up questioningly; but when it was explained, he shook his head. "Stolen," he said.

Reciprocity seemed to amuse him greatly. He repeated it several times, glancing from one to the other of his visitors.

"Do you suppose he knows what it means?" Maurice asked Rosalind.

The magician's quick eyes understood the question. "Golden Rule?" he asked.

"Why, I did not think of that!" cried Rosalind.

"Morgan has a lot of sense," Maurice replied, with an air of proprietorship.

When he had read it all, the magician nodded approvingly. "I'll have to join because you have my motto," he said.

"Then we have six members to begin with," Rosalind remarked joyfully.

By this time it had grown dark again and the rain was beginning to fall, and while the magician, having a good deal on hand, continued his work, Maurice and Rosalind sat on the claw-footed sofa, regardless of dust. Curly Q. and Crisscross both sought refuge in the shop, and the latter proved himself capable of sociability by jumping up beside Rosalind.

"Morgan really does make me think of a magician," she said, stroking Crisscross and looking at the cabinet-maker. "I saw a picture once called 'The Magician's Doorway.' It was all of rich, polished marble, and you could look down a long dim passage where a blue light burned. Just at the entrance a splendid tiger was chained, and above his head hung a silver horn."

"Was the horn to call the magician?" asked Maurice.

"Yes, I suppose so; and you couldn't get it without going very near the tiger. Cousin Louis promised to write a story about it, but he never had time."

A flash of lightning, followed immediately by a clap of thunder, startled them. Maurice went to the door and looked out. "It is going to be a big storm," he said.

As he spoke the rain began to fall in torrents, hiding Miss Betty's house across the street from view. Suddenly a solitary figure with a dripping umbrella was almost swept into the shop.

"Why, Miss Celia!" cried Maurice.

"I began to think I would be drowned," she said, laughing breathlessly.

The magician dropped his shears and took her umbrella.

"You are wet; we must have a fire," he said.

Celia protested. A summer shower wouldn't hurt. It was too warm for a fire. Rosalind meanwhile sat in the shadow, Crisscross beside her, the thought of the rose and of Aunt Genevieve's words making her hope Miss Fair would not see her. Her face was gentle; was it possible she could be unkind and disdainful?

The magician came to the rescue. He didn't believe in quarrels anyway, and if he had considered the matter he probably would have argued that Rosalind could have no concern with those she knew nothing about; and observing her in the corner he said, with a wave of the dripping umbrella, "This is Mr. Pat's little girl, Miss Celia. You remember Mr. Pat?"

Celia, shaking out her wet skirts, turned in surprise. As her eyes met Rosalind's she smiled. "Yes," was all she said.

But after a while she came over and patted Crisscross, and said Rosalind must be a witch to have gained his affection so soon, and asked what she and Maurice were doing there, not as if she wanted an answer so much as just to be friendly.

Rosalind felt a great relief, and her eyes were soft as she responded shyly.



CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

A NEW MEMBER.

"In the circle of this Forest."

In Friendship the summer was never fairly ushered in until Commencements were over. When the boys of the Military Institute, a mile beyond the village, had yelled their last yell from the back platform of the train as it swept around the curve, and Mrs. Graham's boarders had departed, accompanied by their trunks and the enthusiastic farewells of the town pupils, then, and not before, Friendship settled down to the enjoyment of picnics, crabbing parties, and moonlight excursions.

Going away for the summer was almost unknown in Friendship; a week or two at the shore or in the mountains was as much as any of its loyal inhabitants dreamed of. To the few who like Genevieve Whittredge found the place dull at any season, the warm days afforded a welcome excuse for flitting.

After the final decision in the Gilpin will case Friendship drew a long breath and acquiesced in the inevitable. Arguments and discussion lost their interest, and something like the old peace settled down on the town.

The Gilpin house and its contents must now be sold, but summer was not an advantageous season, and the sale had been postponed till early fall in the hope of attracting from a distance lovers of old furniture.

Thus the place was left untenanted. Weeds ran riot in the garden, the grass crept stealthily over the walks, and the clematis and honeysuckle on the low stone wall mingled their sweetness in undisturbed luxuriance. The Arden Foresters were free to come and go as they chose, the only other trespasser being Celia Fair, who when her household tasks were done often brought her sewing to Patricia's Arbor, with the feeling that her days there were numbered.

At the Whittredges' Genevieve was making her preparations to leave soon after the return of her brother Allan, who was looked for any day. Her mother's restless mind had taken a sudden fitful interest in some genealogical question, and welcoming anything that diverted her thoughts from herself had thrown all her energies into the subject, spending most of her time at her desk or in reading old letters.

Rosalind was left to go her ways; if she appeared at meal-time, no questions were asked, Miss Herbert, indeed, shook her head at such liberty. A girl of Rosalind's age should be learning something useful, instead of running about the village or poring over story books. She could not know that with a certain old play for a textbook the children she thought so harum-scarum were learning brave lessons this summer.

Rosalind was happy. The hours when she was not with one or all of these new friends of hers were few, and these she usually spent in the garden, which she was beginning to love, with a book. She had discovered some old books of her father's, given to him in his boyhood, with his name and the date in them, in itself enough to cast a halo over the most stupid tale.

When the sun shone on the garden seat beside the white birch, there was another favorite spot in the shade of a tall cedar, where an occasional stir of wind brought the spray from the fountain against her face.

Yes, in spite of the puzzles, Rosalind was beginning to love Friendship. It was weeks since Great-uncle Allan had seemed to frown on her, and even the griffins wore a friendlier look; as for the rose, she had come to doubt the evidence of her own eyes since that afternoon at the magician's when Miss Fair had shown such friendliness.

The summer so dreary in prospect to Maurice bade fair to be endurable after all. Rosalind's gray eyes, now merry, now serious, but always seeking the good in things, her contagious belief in the Forest, had stirred his manliness, making him conscious of his fretfulness, and then ashamed. His mother, who had dreaded the long holiday, wondered at his content. Katherine wondered a little too. The Forest of Arden made a very nice game, and it was pleasant to have Maurice in a good humor, but she did not quite understand the connection.

Soon after the close of school Colonel Parton took his two older boys away on a western trip, leaving Jack with no resource but Maurice and the girls. The two boys were great chums, and as Maurice's knee made active sports impossible, Jack, too, gave them up for the most part.

As for Belle, her indifference to Rosalind had turned into ardent admiration. She and Charlotte Ellis had a sharp dispute over the new-comer. Charlotte confessed she was disappointed in her, and pronounced her odd, all of which Belle deeply resented, the result being a decided coolness between them.

"I am as glad as I can be Charlotte is going away this summer," she was heard to remark.

"She can't be as glad as I am that we aren't going to be in the same town," was Charlotte's retort when the speech was repeated to her.

The cleverness of Maurice and Rosalind was duly impressed upon the other three when the constitution of The Arden Foresters was read, and after careful consideration it had been copied in the blank-book, and beneath it the members signed their names. The excitement of Commencement week being over, a meeting was called to decide on a badge.

It had been decided that any member might call a meeting, and the method was suggested by Belle. In each garden a spot was selected,—an althea bush at the Partons', a corner of the hedge at the Roberts's, a cedar near the gate at the Whittredges',—in which the summons, a tiny roll of paper tied with grass, was to be deposited.

On the morning appointed for this meeting of The Arden Foresters, Celia Fair, knowing nothing about it, of course, had just settled herself in the arbor with a cushion at her back and her work-basket beside her, when Rosalind looked in. She carried a book and a bunch of leaves, and she seemed surprised to find the summer-house occupied. Her manner was hesitating as, after saying good morning, she asked if Miss Fair had seen Maurice or Belle.

"No; are you expecting them? Won't you come in and sit down while you wait?" Celia asked, noticing the hesitation.

"I wonder what they have told her about me?" was her thought. It brought a flush to her face, and yet why did she care?

Rosalind accepted the invitation shyly. "I must be early," she said. "I was to meet the others here at ten, but I went to drive first with grandmamma."

"It is still ten minutes of ten," Celia said, looking at her watch. "Are you going to have a picnic?"

"No; only a meeting of our society."

"What sort of a society?" Celia asked.

"A secret society," Rosalind replied, with a demure smile.

"Oh, is it? That sounds interesting, but I suppose I can't know any more. What is your book? That isn't part of the secret, is it?"

Rosalind slipped off the paper cover and laid the little volume in Celia's lap.

The young lady took it up, exclaiming with delight over the binding of soft leather, the handmade paper, and beautiful type. It fell open at the fly-leaf with the inscription.

"And Professor Sargent gave you this Lovely book?" she said.

Rosalind's eyes shone at this tribute. "Cousin Louis gave it to me just before he and father started for Japan, and he wrote that about the hard things because I wanted so much to go with them and I couldn't," she explained.

"Rosalind, what was it you were talking to Maurice about, here behind the arbor one day? I couldn't help hearing a little. It had something to do with a forest." Celia had dropped the book in her lap and looked at Rosalind with something that was almost eagerness in her lace.

Rosalind thought a moment, "Why, did you hear us? I know now what it was," and she turned the leaves and pointed to the paragraph beginning, "If we will, we may travel always in the Forest," then she added shyly, "You ought to belong to the Forest because of your name."

"'So losing by the way the sacred gift of happiness,'" Celia repeated, her eyes on the book. "What do you mean by belonging to the Forest?" she asked, looking up.

Rosalind seldom needed to be urged to talk on this subject, and she had a sympathetic listener as she explained the Forest secret, and told how it had helped her in the loneliness of those first days in Friendship.

Celia was lonely and sad. She had held aloof so long in her proud reserve that now there seemed nowhere to turn for the sympathy she longed for, and Rosalind's little allegory, with its simple message of patience and hope, fell upon ground well prepared.

"Oh, Rosalind," she cried, "show me how to live in the Forest!" and with a manner altogether out of keeping with the Celia known to most persons, she drew the child to her. "I wish you would love me, dear," she said.

Rosalind's shyness faded away. She forgot about the rose, and Aunt Genevieve's words. Here was a new friend, one who cared about the Forest. She responded warmly to Celia's caress, and when a few minutes later the other Arden Foresters rushed upon the scene, the two were talking together as if they had known each other always.

"Miss Celia, are you going to join our society?" asked Belle, the ardent, flying to her side and giving her a hug.

"Don't stick yourself on my needle! I haven't been invited yet. Rosalind tells me it is a secret society, and of course I am dying to know about it."

"Let's tell her," said Katherine.

"Girls always want to tell everything," remarked Jack, causing Belle to frown upon him sternly.

"The magician has joined," added Rosalind.

"Then I don't see why Miss Celia can't. Do you, Maurice?" asked Belle.

"Listen, Belle," said Celia, laughing, and without waiting for Maurice's reply, "there may be some difference of opinion as to whether I should be a desirable member or not; suppose you go over there under the oak and talk it over. Then if you want me I'll consider the question."

This seemed a sensible suggestion, and the Foresters retired to the shade of the scarlet oak to discuss the matter. Jack had meant nothing but a fling at the feminine fondness for telling things, and was astonished that his remark could be supposed to reflect upon Miss Celia; and as no one else found any objection to the new member, they returned presently to inform her that she was by unanimous consent invited to become an honorary member of their society.

"As honorary members aren't expected to do much, I'll consider it. Now please tell me about it. What is its name and object?"

Maurice produced the book and read, "'The name of this Society shall be The Arden Foresters.'"

"That sounds like Robin Hood, don't you think?" Belle put in.

"'The object,'" Maurice continued, "'shall be to remember the Secret of the Forest, to bear hard things bravely, to search for the ring, and reciprocity.'"

"What ring?" Celia asked, smiling at the queer ending to this article.

"Don't you know? Patricia's ring. The one that is lost," Rosalind explained, sorting her leaves.

"I fear it is a hopeless quest."

"Maurice," Rosalind exclaimed, "that is the word we wanted,—the 'quest' of the ring. Let's put it in."

"What does it mean?" asked Katherine.

"A search," Celia answered.

"Then why won't 'search' do?"

"But 'quest' sounds more like the Forest," Rosalind urged.

"More romantic," added Belle, adjusting her comb and tying her ribbon.

"One word is as good as another if it means what you want to say," insisted Jack. "They think they are so smart with their 'reciprocity,' and they got it out of a book."

Rosalind glanced at him reproachfully. "We looked in the dictionary for the meaning," she said.

"I see no objection to getting it out of a book. Most constitutions are patterned after others, and reciprocity is a good word. Is there any more?" Miss Celia spread her work on her knee and turned to Maurice.

"Just the watchword 'The Forest.'"

"I like your society very much and want to join if, as you suggested, I can be an honorary member. I can try to bear hard things bravely, and remember the Forest secret, although I haven't any time to give to the quest of the ring."

"Then let her write her name under the magician's," said Rosalind, clapping her hands. "Now we have seven members."

Maurice had his fountain-pen in his pocket, just as if he had expected a new member this morning, and Celia signed her name in the book beneath "C.J. Morgan, Magician."

"He wrote that for fun, because Rosalind calls him 'the magician,'" Belle explained.

"I haven't heard that old title for many a year," Celia remarked, as she waited for her signature to dry.

"Now we have to choose a badge," said Belle.

Rosalind spread out her collection of leaves. "We thought a leaf would be appropriate," she added. There were beech, and maple, and poplar, and oak in several varieties.

"I think I should choose this," and Celia pointed to a leaf from the scarlet oak. "Not only because it is beautiful in shape, but because the oak tree stands for courage. A 'heart of oak' has become a proverb, you know."

Rosalind's eyes grew bright. "I didn't think of its having a meaning. I like that."

"And in the fall we'll have scarlet badges instead of green ones," said Jack.

There could be no better choice than this, they all agreed; and Jack gathered a handful, that they might put on their badges at once.

"On our way home we must stop and tell the magician about it," Rosalind said, as she pinned a leaf on Celia's dress.



CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.

RECIPROCITY.

"Take upon command what we have, That to your wanting may be ministered."

"Celia Fair, do you realize what you have done?"

It was Celia who asked herself the question. She was suffering, as reserved people must, from the reaction that follows an unusual outburst of feeling. That had been a happy morning in the arbor; she had let herself go, had listened to her heart and forgotten her pride, and in the company of the merry Arden Foresters, the old joy of youth had asserted itself. The brightness had stayed with her for days; she had dreamed she could make a fairy tale of life, spending her hours in an enchanted forest, and now had come the awakening.

It seemed destined from the beginning to be a day of misfortunes. She woke with a dull, listless feeling, and the first thing to greet her eyes when she went downstairs was the woolly head of Bob, the grandson of her sole dependence, Aunt Sally, waiting on the doorstep to impart the cheering information that granny had the "misery" in her side mighty bad, and couldn't come to-day.

At another time it might not have mattered so much, for the boys were away from home, and breakfast for two did not offer any insuperable difficulties to Celia, but there were currants and raspberries waiting to be made into jelly and preserves. To complicate matters, Mrs. Fair had one of her severe headaches.

The fruit would not keep another day, and Celia couldn't leave the house to go down the hill in search of help, even if she had known just where to seek it. After making her mother as comfortable as possible, she began on the currants with sombre energy.

"May I come in, Miss Celia? Will you lend me a cup?" It was Jack who stood in the door.

"Help yourself," she replied, "I am too busy to stop."

"We want to get some water from the spring," he explained. "Aren't you coming over to-day?"

Celia shook her head.

Jack surveyed the piles of fruit. "Jiminy! have you all this to do?"

"Yes; Aunt Sally is sick this morning, and it can't wait."

Jack disappeared, leaving Celia to her gloomy thoughts, but ten minutes had not passed before he was back again, accompanied by the other Arden Foresters.

"We have come to help," they announced.

For a moment Celia was annoyed. She had made up her mind to be a martyr and did not care to be disturbed.

"Indeed, you can't," she said. "I am very much obliged, but you would stain yourselves, and—"

"Give us some aprons," interrupted Belle. "Mother lets us help her."

Maurice added, "It is reciprocity, Miss Celia."

Celia's ill temper wavered and went down before the row of bright faces. "Well, perhaps you may help if you really want to, but it is tiresome work."

They did not seem to find it so, as they sat around the table on the porch, carefully done up in checked aprons, three of them at work on the raspberries, and two helping Celia with the currants.

Each wore a fresh oak leaf, and nothing would do but Rosalind must run back to get one for Miss Celia; and there must have been magic in it, so suddenly did Celia's courage revive.

"I feel better," she said, stopping to turn the leaves of the cook-book. "Let me see,—'boil several hours till the juice is well out of the fruit,'—Sally always lets it drip over night into the big stone jar. I shall have these currants out of the way by dinner-time. You are really a great help. I wish there was something I could do for you."

"Tell us a story, Miss Celia," Belle suggested promptly.

"I don't know any."

"Something about when you were a little girl," said Katherine.

Celia hesitated. "The only story I know is about a magician and a tiger, Rosalind's calling Morgan 'the magician' reminded me of it."

"I love magicians and tigers," Rosalind remarked. "Do you remember the picture I told you about, Maurice? Do tell it to us, Miss Celia."

Celia wondered afterward how she could have done it, but now she thought of nothing but her desire to please the children, so she began:—

"Once there was a little girl who loved fairy tales and believed with all her heart in fairies, magicians, and ogres. In the town where she had recently come to live she had a playmate, a boy, who laughed at her for thinking there were such creatures in the world, and the two often argued the matter.

"One day this little girl was sitting on the fence looking up at the sky and wishing something would happen, when she heard the boy calling her. She answered, and he came running across the grass and climbed up beside her, and with an air of great mystery told her he knew a secret. Of course the little girl was anxious to hear it, and of course the boy tried to tease her by refusing to tell. But by and by he could keep it no longer, and in tones of awe he whispered that he knew a magician who lived in their very town.

"The little girl clapped her hands; for if her playmate believed in magicians, he must surely come to believe in fairies too.

"The boy went on to explain that this magician appeared exactly like other men, so that few guessed his mysterious power. He lived in a house quite like other houses except that its door was painted black; but behind this door lay a tiger, always ready to spring upon any one who tried to enter. On this great tiger in some way depended the magician's power.

"There had been a fire in the village recently, which, the boy said, had been caused by the magician, as well as certain other calamities, such as scarlet-fever and measles, and the time had come when this must be stopped. The boy claimed to have discovered—he did not say how—that the magician's tiger had three white whiskers, all the rest being black, and in these white whiskers resided all his power. If in any way they could be removed, he and his master would be harmless forevermore.

"But how was this to be done? the little girl wanted to know, feeling deeply impressed meanwhile by the tragedy of the situation.

"The only way, the boy replied, was to catch the tiger while he slept, and then—a snip of the scissors, and he could do no more harm. The little girl had some round-pointed scissors hanging from a ribbon around her neck, for she was fond of cutting things; she took them in her hand now and looked at them with a shiver as the boy added in a tragic whisper, 'We must do it!'

"Although she was very much afraid, she never thought of objecting. It was her duty, and she had great confidence in her companion. He could do many things she couldn't do, and he was ten and she only six; so when he examined the scissors and said they would answer, without a word of objection she slipped down from the fence and trotted beside him.

"It seemed quite natural that the way should be over fences and through back yards instead of along the street. They climbed rails and squeezed through hedges until the little girl was breathless and had not the least idea where she was, when she found herself in a narrow garden-path, on either side of which grew hollyhocks and sunflowers.

"'There is the door,' the boy whispered; and—yes—at the end of the path she saw the black door.

"'This is the hour when he sleeps,' the boy said, in thrilling tones, looking at an imaginary watch. 'We have timed it well. I will open the door softly, and you have your scissors ready; I will hold him while you cut off the whiskers.' The little girl's heart almost stopped beating, but she had no thought of running away.

"They reached the door; the boy had his hand on the knob. He was opening it very gently—when something happened! He stumbled, or his hand slipped. It flew open and there before them stood the magician, brandishing a glittering sword, and beside him were the gleaming eyes of a tiger.

"With a cry of terror the little girl fell all in a heap, grasping her scissors, shutting her eyes tight till all should be over. Then some one picked her up and asked if she was hurt, and slowly gaining courage she opened her eyes and looked into the kind face of Morgan, the cabinet-maker. At his side was Tiger, the great striped cat, and on the work-bench lay his shining saw. The boy stood by, laughing."

"I thought he must be fooling her," remarked Katherine, in a tone of relief.

"You don't mean it!" said Maurice, with fine sarcasm.

"But finish, Miss Celia," begged Rosalind. "What did the little girl think?"

"I believe for a long time she was greatly puzzled. There seemed to have been magic somewhere. She examined Tiger's whiskers and found them all black, and this made her think it possible that some one else had cut out the white ones, and thus turned him into a harmless cat. She felt a little uneasy at times, for fear the cabinet-maker would turn again into the wicked magician, but it never happened."

"And did she go on believing in fairies?" Rosalind asked.

"Oh, yes, for a while. I am not sure she doesn't yet."

"Cousin Louis says that is one of the advantages of the 'Forest of Arden,' you can believe in all those delightful things."

"Were there fairies there?" asked Belle. "I don't remember any."

"There would have been if occasion had called for them," Celia answered.

"But you don't want to believe things if they aren't true, do you?" Katherine looked puzzled. "I wish there were fairies now, but I know there aren't."

"You can't prove there aren't," asserted Jack, mischievously.

"Why, Jack, you know there aren't any fairies really."

"I said you couldn't prove it."

"How can you say they do not exist unless you have seen one not existing? Isn't that the argument in 'Water Babies'?" laughed Celia, as she carried the currants into the kitchen. "It is the difference between fact and fancy, Katherine," she said, coming back.

"I love to pretend things," said Rosalind.

"So do I," echoed Belle.

"Fancy does more than that, it really makes things beautiful. For instance, it makes the difference between a plain, straight letter such as you see in the newspaper and such a letter as I was embroidering yesterday. Some one's fancy saw the plain S ornamented with curving lines and sprays of flowers, and so it came to be made so."

"That makes me think of those beautiful books the monks used to make," said Maurice.

"The illuminated manuscripts, you mean? That word expresses what fancy does for us,—it illuminates the plain facts, and fills them with beauty."

"Oh, Miss Celia, that is a lovely idea," cried Rosalind. "I must remember it to tell Cousin Louis."

"I fear be wouldn't find it very new," Celia answered, smiling.

By noon the fruit was all picked over, and as Celia stood at the gate watching her helpers out of sight, old Sally came laboring up the walk.

"Law, honey, look like I couldn't rest from studyin' how you was gwine to git them berries done, an' I 'lowed, misery or no misery, I was comin' to help you," she announced.



CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

A NEW COMRADE.

"I know you are a gentleman of good conceit."

Rosalind and Maurice sat on the garden bench discussing "The Young Marooners," one of the story books found in the garret.

"I shouldn't like to be carried off by a big fish as they were, but I do think some sort of an adventure would be interesting. Don't you?" asked Rosalind.

"We'll have to do something," Maurice agreed, "Don't you wish we could get inside the Gilpin house? Mr. Wells, the teller in our bank, sleeps there. I wish he would drop the key."

"Grandmamma says it will be open for people to go through before the sale, but then it will be too late to look for the ring. Belle is so good at thinking of things, I wish she would find a way for us to get in," Rosalind added.

A bell was heard ringing on the other side of the hedge, and Maurice rose. "Dinner is ready," he said.

Rosalind walked to the gate with him. "Uncle Allan is coming to-morrow," she remarked, "and I just wonder what he is like."

Turning toward the house again, she became aware of a stranger standing beside the griffins. He was not waiting to get in, for the door was open behind him, and furthermore he had the air of being at home. Something in his height and the breadth of his shoulders suggested her father, and as she drew nearer a certain resemblance to Aunt Genevieve developed.

He watched her approach with a look of puzzled interest. "Surely, this isn't Rosalind," he said.

Rosalind paused on the bottom step. "Why, yes, it is. Are you Uncle Allan?"

"A great tall girl like you my niece? Pat's daughter? Impossible!" There was a twinkle in his eye. Clearly, Uncle Allan was a tease.

"I suppose I shall have to be identified," said Rosalind, merrily.

"I begin to see a look of Pat about you." He came down the steps now and took her hand. "Let's sit here and get acquainted," he said, leading the way to the bench under the birch tree.

Two pairs of eyes, the brown and the gray, looked into each other steadily and soberly for a few seconds, then a dimple began to make itself visible in Rosalind's check, whereat the brown eyes twinkled again. "Well, what do you think of me?" they asked.

"You aren't much like Great-uncle Allan," said Rosalind, laughing.

"Heavens! was that your idea of me? And I expected you to be a child of tender age, although I should have known better. It is nearly fourteen years since Pat went away."

"Uncle Allan, did you know my mother?" It was the first time Rosalind had mentioned her mother since she had been in Friendship. She could not have explained her silence any more than she could this sudden question.

"I did not know her, Rosalind. I wish I might have. I saw her once, and I have never forgotten her face."

"I can remember her just a little, but father and Cousin Louis have told me about her, and I have her picture."

"I think," said Uncle Allan, confidently, "that we are going to be friends. Tell me how you like Friendship."

"I like it now. I was dreadfully lonely at first, till things began to happen. Then there was Cousin Betty's tea party, where I met Belle and Jack and the rest, and now—oh, I like it very much! It is a funny place. Aunt Genevieve says you don't like it any better than she does." Rosalind's tone was questioning.

"I believe it does seem rather a stupid old town," he acknowledged. "What do you find interesting about it?"

"There is the magician and his shop; and the out of doors is so beautiful—almost like the country; and the houses are different from those in the city; and there is the will, and the lost ring." Rosalind suddenly remembered her uncle's connection with the ring.

He did not seem to understand, for he asked, "What ring?" then added, "Oh, you mean the Gilpin will. Who has told you about that?"

"Cousin Betty; and she told us the story of Patricia's ring, Uncle Allan, don't you wish we could find it?"

Allan Whittredge smiled at the eager face. "I can't say I care much about it," he replied; then seeing her disappointment, he added, "It was a handsome old ring. Should you like to have it?"

"I'd like to see it; but of course it wasn't meant for me. Cousin Betty said—" Rosalind paused, for the expression on her uncle's face was more than ever like Aunt Genevieve, and he exclaimed impatiently, "Stuff!"

She felt rather hurt. She had expected him to be as interested in the ring as she was. What did he mean by "stuff"? And why didn't he like Friendship? Rosalind fell to pondering all this, sitting in the corner of the bench, looking down at her hands, crossed in her lap.

After some minutes' silence she felt her chin lifted until her eyes met the gaze of the merriest brown ones, from which all trace of disdain or impatience was gone.

"What are you thinking about so soberly? Are you disappointed in me, after all?"

Rosalind laughed. "I am just sorry you don't like Friendship."

"Perhaps it is because I have been away so long. I used to like it when I was a boy."

"Can't you turn into a boy again?"

"Perhaps I might, if you will show me how."

Rosalind clapped her hands. "I don't think I am a bit disappointed in you, and I am almost sure you will like the Forest."

"What forest?"

"I'll show you the book and tell you about it sometime; and then maybe you will join our society."

"This sounds interesting; I believe I shall like Friendship."

Rosalind surveyed him thoughtfully. "I think I'll begin by taking you to see the magician," she said.

By what witchery did she divine that the shortest path to his boyhood was by way of the magician's?

"The magician? Oh, that is Morgan, I suppose." Allan's eyes rested absently on the drooping hydrangea a few feet away.

Presently a soft hand stole beneath his chin, and Rosalind demanded merrily, as she tried to turn his face to hers, "What are you thinking about? Are you disappointed in me?"

"Not terribly," her uncle replied, and seizing the hand he drew her to him and gave her the kiss of friendship and good-fellowship.

Rosalind was fastidious about kisses. She reserved them for those she loved, and received them shrinkingly from those she did not care for; but in this short interview she had found a friend, and she returned the caress with an ardor of affection pretty to see.

Martin, announcing lunch, interrupted their talk, and, hand in hand, Rosalind and her new comrade walked to the house. In the exuberance of her content, she patted one of the griffins as she passed. Her uncle observed it.

"Have you ever noticed the resemblance between Uncle Allan Barnwell and the griffins?" he asked.

The idea amused Rosalind greatly, and as she took her seat at the table, the sight of the haughtily poised head and eagle eyes of the portrait made her laugh. Things were indeed taking a turn when that stern face caused amusement.

With Uncle Allan at the foot of the table, luncheon was transformed into a festive occasion. Masculine tones were almost startling from their novelty; Rosalind found herself forgetting to eat. Grandmamma was wonderfully bright, and Aunt Genevieve showed a languid animation most unusual.

"It was like you, Allan, after putting us off so long, to end by surprising us," his sister said.

"I trust you intend to stay for a while," his mother added, almost wistfully.

Genevieve laughed half scornfully, as if she considered this a forlorn hope.

Allan looked at her a moment before he replied, "I don't know; I shall probably be here some time." He had more than half promised his friend Blanchard to join him in a trip over the Canadian Pacific in August. At present he felt inclined to give it up and remain in Friendship. He would not commit himself.

He thought it over lazily after lunch, resting in the sleepy-hollow chair by the east window in the room that had been his ever since he graduated from the nursery. All about him were devices for comfort and adornment that spoke of his mother's hand. She knew the sort of thing he liked,—his handsome, unhappy mother. It was a shame to leave her so much alone; yet she never complained, but seemed always self-sufficient and independent.

And then Allan began to reflect on the singular fact that he was seldom quite at ease with his mother, although he admired her, and at one time had been very much under her influence. If he had ceased to care for his home, it was her fault for sending him away for so long. "Poor mother!" he thought. "We have all disappointed her; but she was never quite fair to any of us. She wanted us to go her way, and, being her children, we preferred our own."

The sound of Rosalind's voice floated in at the window. He looked out. She was crossing the lawn, after an interview with Katherine through the hedge.

"When are we to begin?" he called.

"Whenever you like," she answered.

He went down and joined her in the garden, thinking what a difference she made in the place. He had not supposed a girl of twelve could be so charming; but then, she was his brother's daughter, with something of her father about her, and he had felt a little boy's admiration for this older brother.

Rosalind told him it was almost like having father or Cousin Louis to talk to; and as they wandered about the garden Allan found himself feeling flattered at her evident pleasure in his society.

She brought out her treasured book to show him, and explained about the Forest; and Allan listened absently, noting the soft curve of her cheek and the length of the dark lashes, his memory going back to that one occasion when he had seen the gentle and lovely girl who was afterward his brother's wife.

"And now we must go to the magician's," said Rosalind.

Not many of the inhabitants of Friendship were abroad in the middle of a summer afternoon, and they had the street almost to themselves when they set out. The quiet, the bowed shutters, the deserted porches, suggested a universal nap. Allan looked up at the tall maples, whose branches met across the road just as they had done in his childhood. Truly, there was a charm about the old town, with its homelike dwellings and generous gardens, he acknowledged to himself. "I believe we are the only people awake," he remarked.

"The magician will be awake," Rosalind replied; and so he was, rubbing down the clock case to-day, but by no means too much occupied for company, and he welcomed his visitors cordially, saying Allan was one of his boys.

Rosalind was amazed at the ease and rapidity with which her uncle talked with the cabinet-maker.

"Have you come home to stay this time, Mr. Allan?" Morgan asked.

Allan laughed, and said he did not know about that.

"Two—four—eight years—" the magician told them off on his fingers, shaking his head. "Too long. Take root somewhere, Mr. Allan; too much travel spoils you. Your father loved Friendship."

"Yes," said Allan, gravely.

"You make him join the society," Morgan said, turning to Rosalind.

"He means our secret society," she explained. "He belongs, and he has our motto on the wall," and she drew her uncle to the door of the back room and pointed it out.

"Oh, I remember Morgan's motto, 'Good in everything.' Does one have to subscribe to that in order to join this society?"



"That is one thing."

"If there are many such requirements, I fear I shall prove not eligible."

"Does that mean you can't join?" Rosalind asked, looking disappointed.

"Well, I'll consider it. I'll try to be broad-minded and practise believing impossible things, like Alice."

"'Six impossible things before breakfast,'" quoted Rosalind. "I am so glad you know Alice; but it was the White Queen, wasn't it?"

"I shouldn't wonder if it was," Allan answered, laughing.

They went out to the little garden to see the sweet peas and nasturtiums, and the magician insisted upon gathering some. While they waited Rosalind told her uncle about the time she took tea with him.

When at last they left the shop, Miss Betty was standing in her door, and they crossed over to speak to her.

"Well, Allan, I am glad to see you at last," she said, coming down the walk to meet them.

"You do not appear to have pined away in my absence," he replied, shaking hands.

Miss Betty shrugged her shoulders. "I was never much on pining, but my curiosity has been sadly strained."

"What about?"

"You know very well. That ring."

"Now, if that isn't like Friendship," said Allan, laughing, as he followed her to the porch and made himself comfortable in one of the big rocking chairs. Rosalind sat on the step arranging her flowers and listening.

"I would have you know I have something else to think about besides foolish and unreasonable wills and lost jewels," Allan continued. "I regret I cannot relieve the strain, but so far as I know, the ring has not been heard of and is not likely to be."

"But if it should be found?" said Miss Betty. "Stranger things have happened."

"Yes," said Allan.

"Then the question is, do you know what you are going to do with it?"

"That is a question with which I shall not trouble myself until it is found. I am a lazy person, as you know, Cousin Betty."

"I know nothing of the sort, Allan. Now, there is one thing you might tell me. Do you know what Cousin Thomas meant, or was it one of his jokes? Yes or no."

"No," answered Allan, promptly.

Miss Betty looked puzzled; then she laughed. "It is like playing tit, tat, toe, to talk to you," she exclaimed. "I might have known you'd get ahead of me."

"I have answered your question as you desired; now let's change the subject," he suggested gravely.

Rosalind gave a gentle little chuckle. Miss Betty looked at her. "What do you think of your uncle, Rosalind?" she asked.

"You certainly have the gift for asking pointed questions," Allan remarked, before Rosalind could speak. "I can tell you what she expected. She had an idea that I resembled Uncle Allan Barnwell."

"Gracious! You must be relieved. I could have told you better than that."

"I didn't really think it; I only wondered," said Rosalind.

Miss Betty laughed in a reminiscent sort of way. "Do you remember him, Allan? But no, I fancy you were too little. He used to visit at our house when I was a child, and I was never so afraid of any one. I suppose you have heard the story of his wedding?"

"I have a dim recollection of the story. Tell it to Rosalind."

"Well," she began, "Uncle Allan was a minister, you know. A Presbyterian of the sternest stuff, rich in eloquence and power of argument, but poor in this world's goods. However, he judiciously fell in love with Matilda Greene, the only daughter of a wealthy Baltimore merchant. As was natural, Matilda chose for her wedding-gown a gorgeous robe of white satin, and all the preparations for the event were on a lavish scale. When the day came and the guests had assembled, and the bride in her beautiful gown and lace veil appeared before the eyes of the bridegroom, Uncle Allan created a sensation by sternly declaring that such a dress was inappropriate for the bride of a humble minister of the Gospel.

"And the meek Matilda, instead of telling him he could marry her as she was or not at all, took off her satin, put on a simple muslin, and the ceremony was performed. Uncle Allan always referred to his wife as 'My Matilda'; and if the truth were known, I fancy she couldn't call her soul her own."

"I remember the story," said Allan, laughing. "We come of a stubborn family. What would have happened if Matilda had asserted herself?"

"He had her at a disadvantage,—the guests waiting,—but she missed the chance of a lifetime," said Miss Betty.

"Was Matilda fond of him?" asked Rosalind.

"Let us hope so; at any rate she always spoke of him as 'My Allan.'"



CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

AN IMPRISONED MAIDEN.

"The house doth keep itself, There's none within."

It was plain to Rosalind that for some reason her uncle did not wish to discuss the ring; nor did he seem to care whether or not it was found. It was also plain that he did not agree with his mother and sister on the question of the will.

On one occasion when Genevieve made some scornful reference to the probable motives of those who upheld the later one, Allan exclaimed in a tone of irritation, "It is beyond my comprehension how you can have so much feeling in the matter. I have seen no reason to suppose the old man incapable of making a will. The testimony seemed to point the other way; and as nobody except the hospital had anything to gain by this last win, it strikes me as worse than absurd to impute motives of jealousy to people who were only giving their honest opinion."