"It isn"t too late. This is an impromptu affair in honor of Patterson,"
said Allan, offering her a chair.
"You have no idea what a noise you are making," she said, greeting the stranger. "I had just come in from a guild meeting, and the unusual illumination and the sounds of hilarity were too much for my curiosity."
Here her glance rested in evident surprise upon Celia.
"Celia has something to show you, Cousin Betty," Allan said mercilessly, "and you are not to bother me about it any more."
Miss Betty went around to Celia and kissed her. "It is what I have been hoping all along," she whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTIETH.
OAK LEAVES.
"Bid me farewell."
"I have something to tell you," said Belle, as the Arden Foresters walked up the hill toward the Gilpin place.
"So have I," added Rosalind, "something lovely," and she waved a small package aloft.
"Is it something for us?" Katherine asked.
"Let Belle tell hers first. Mine must wait till we get to the oak tree."
"It is about the ring. I have found out how it came to be in the spinet,"
Belle announced.
"Really? How?"
"Lucy Brown, Aunt Milly"s granddaughter, put it there," she began, all eagerness to tell her news. "Aunt Milly, you know, was Mr. Gilpin"s cook, and Lucy had come in from the country to stay with her a few days, when he was taken ill. The morning he died she found the case with the ring in it under the library table, and she carried it into the drawing-room, where she was dusting, meaning to show it to her grandmother. Just as she had opened the spinet some one called to her to run for Dr. Fair, that Mr.
Gilpin was dying, and in a great hurry she pushed the ring case under the strings and closed the lid and forgot all about it. She went home before anybody knew the ring was lost, and never thought of it again till she came to Friendship the other day and our Manda was telling her about the magician"s finding it."
"I am almost sorry we know how it happened," said Rosalind. "I liked to think the magician had really broken the spell."
It was the last meeting of the Arden Foresters before Rosalind"s departure, and in spite of the wintry day they decided it must be held under the oak tree; and little cared they for the weather as they rustled through the fallen leaves beneath the bare brown trees.
"I believe it is going to snow," said Jack, turning up his collar.
"If you"ll stay we"ll take you coasting down the Gilpin hill," Maurice added.
"I am afraid if I waited it wouldn"t snow," Rosalind answered, laughing, "And now I have something to show you." They had reached the arbor, and sitting down she opened the box she carried.
"You know we have been wondering what we should do for badges when the leaves were gone. Just see what the president has sent!" and she displayed to their delighted gaze five small, enamelled oak leaves.
If Dr. Hollingsworth was sensitive to compliments, his ears must have burned badly about this time. Belle summed them up by remarking, "I just believe he is almost the nicest man I ever knew."
They stood together under the oak tree, and Rosalind pinned on the new badges. "Let"s promise to be friends, whatever happens," she said, "because we know the Forest secret and have had such good times this summer."
The sun shone out brightly for a moment as the wind swept over the hilltop, rattling the vines on Patricia"s Arbor; under the autumn sky the winding river sparkled as gayly as when its banks were green; on the far-away stretch of yellow road the wintry sunshine lay; and under the red oak they clasped hands and promised to be friends always.