"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 a.s.sented 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 sh.e.l.ling 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l peas?" Rosalind laughed.
What a provoking girl this was! And yet he liked her, and somehow at the vision of himself sh.e.l.ling 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 a.s.surance.
"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 gra.s.s, 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.