“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.