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.