Rosalind shook her head.  The tears were near the surface, but she kept them back, and remembering her book she laid it on the magician’s knee, open at the words Cousin Louis had written:  “If we choose we may travel 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.  Just outside is the dreary desert in which, alas! many choose to walk, shutting their eyes to the beauty and peace of the Forest, and losing by the way the sacred gift of happiness.”

The magician read it slowly through, then he smiled at Rosalind over his glasses.  “That’s so,” he said.  “It is hard to keep out of the desert sometimes, but it all comes right in the end.  Why, the other day I was—­” here he shook his head and put on a woe-begone expression of countenance that made his meaning plain, and caused Rosalind to laugh—­“and I looked up and there you stood in the door and pointed to the motto, ’Good in everything,’ and I felt better.”

“Did I really cheer you up?” cried Rosalind, delighted; and nodding quite as if he heard, the magician answered, “Now I’ll cheer you up.”  Rising, he beckoned her to follow him inside, and she obeyed, feeling as if she were somebody in a story.

The kettle was already singing merrily, and from a shelf the magician took down a fat little teapot and, rinsing it with boiling water, proceeded to make tea.  Next he spread a white cloth on a small table, and from the cupboard took out some blue and white cups and plates.

“Let me set it,” begged Rosalind, in pantomime, entering gayly into the spirit of the thing.

Laughing, the magician left it to her and went off to his store-room, from which he emerged with a pitcher of milk and a loaf of brown bread.

There was nothing in the appointments of this simple meal to offend the most fastidious taste, and it was a sight to bring a smile to the dolefulest countenance, to see Rosalind and the magician sitting opposite to each other drinking tea.  In the midst of it Morgan jumped up and went to the store-room, returning with a tumbler of jelly.  “Miss Betty Bishop’s jelly,” he said.  “Do you know Miss Betty?”

Rosalind shook her head.

“She makes good things,” he added, as he unscrewed the top.

Rosalind’s afternoon in the open air had given her an appetite, and she did full justice to the brown bread and jelly, the novelty of the occasion adding a flavor.  Through the open door and window came the glow of the sunset, and the air was sweet with some far-off fragrance.  All trouble had faded from her face; it was as if in the heart of the Forest she had come upon some friendly inn.  Such a small matter as dinner in the house behind the griffins quite escaped her memory.

“Well, upon my word!”

[Illustration:  “Do you know miss Betty?”]