“No; only a meeting of our society.”

“What sort of a society?” Celia asked.

“A secret society,” Rosalind replied, with a demure smile.

“Oh, is it?  That sounds interesting, but I suppose I can’t know any more.  What is your book?  That isn’t part of the secret, is it?”

Rosalind slipped off the paper cover and laid the little volume in Celia’s lap.

The young lady took it up, exclaiming with delight over the binding of soft leather, the handmade paper, and beautiful type.  It fell open at the fly-leaf with the inscription.

“And Professor Sargent gave you this Lovely book?” she said.

Rosalind’s eyes shone at this tribute.  “Cousin Louis gave it to me just before he and father started for Japan, and he wrote that about the hard things because I wanted so much to go with them and I couldn’t,” she explained.

“Rosalind, what was it you were talking to Maurice about, here behind the arbor one day?  I couldn’t help hearing a little.  It had something to do with a forest.”  Celia had dropped the book in her lap and looked at Rosalind with something that was almost eagerness in her lace.

Rosalind thought a moment, “Why, did you hear us?  I know now what it was,” and she turned the leaves and pointed to the paragraph beginning, “If we will, we may travel always in the Forest,” then she added shyly, “You ought to belong to the Forest because of your name.”

“‘So losing by the way the sacred gift of happiness,’” Celia repeated, her eyes on the book.  “What do you mean by belonging to the Forest?” she asked, looking up.

Rosalind seldom needed to be urged to talk on this subject, and she had a sympathetic listener as she explained the Forest secret, and told how it had helped her in the loneliness of those first days in Friendship.

Celia was lonely and sad.  She had held aloof so long in her proud reserve that now there seemed nowhere to turn for the sympathy she longed for, and Rosalind’s little allegory, with its simple message of patience and hope, fell upon ground well prepared.

“Oh, Rosalind,” she cried, “show me how to live in the Forest!” and with a manner altogether out of keeping with the Celia known to most persons, she drew the child to her.  “I wish you would love me, dear,” she said.

Rosalind’s shyness faded away.  She forgot about the rose, and Aunt Genevieve’s words.  Here was a new friend, one who cared about the Forest.  She responded warmly to Celia’s caress, and when a few minutes later the other Arden Foresters rushed upon the scene, the two were talking together as if they had known each other always.

“Miss Celia, are you going to join our society?” asked Belle, the ardent, flying to her side and giving her a hug.

“Don’t stick yourself on my needle!  I haven’t been invited yet.  Rosalind tells me it is a secret society, and of course I am dying to know about it.”