“Oh, Miss Celia, that is a lovely idea,” cried Rosalind.  “I must remember it to tell Cousin Louis.”

“I fear be wouldn’t find it very new,” Celia answered, smiling.

By noon the fruit was all picked over, and as Celia stood at the gate watching her helpers out of sight, old Sally came laboring up the walk.

“Law, honey, look like I couldn’t rest from studyin’ how you was gwine to git them berries done, an’ I ‘lowed, misery or no misery, I was comin’ to help you,” she announced.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

A new comrade.

“I know you are a gentleman of good conceit.”

Rosalind and Maurice sat on the garden bench discussing “The Young Marooners,” one of the story books found in the garret.

“I shouldn’t like to be carried off by a big fish as they were, but I do think some sort of an adventure would be interesting.  Don’t you?” asked Rosalind.

“We’ll have to do something,” Maurice agreed, “Don’t you wish we could get inside the Gilpin house?  Mr. Wells, the teller in our bank, sleeps there.  I wish he would drop the key.”

“Grandmamma says it will be open for people to go through before the sale, but then it will be too late to look for the ring.  Belle is so good at thinking of things, I wish she would find a way for us to get in,” Rosalind added.

A bell was heard ringing on the other side of the hedge, and Maurice rose.  “Dinner is ready,” he said.

Rosalind walked to the gate with him.  “Uncle Allan is coming to-morrow,” she remarked, “and I just wonder what he is like.”

Turning toward the house again, she became aware of a stranger standing beside the griffins.  He was not waiting to get in, for the door was open behind him, and furthermore he had the air of being at home.  Something in his height and the breadth of his shoulders suggested her father, and as she drew nearer a certain resemblance to Aunt Genevieve developed.

He watched her approach with a look of puzzled interest.  “Surely, this isn’t Rosalind,” he said.

Rosalind paused on the bottom step.  “Why, yes, it is.  Are you Uncle Allan?”

“A great tall girl like you my niece?  Pat’s daughter?  Impossible!” There was a twinkle in his eye.  Clearly, Uncle Allan was a tease.

“I suppose I shall have to be identified,” said Rosalind, merrily.

“I begin to see a look of Pat about you.”  He came down the steps now and took her hand.  “Let’s sit here and get acquainted,” he said, leading the way to the bench under the birch tree.

Two pairs of eyes, the brown and the gray, looked into each other steadily and soberly for a few seconds, then a dimple began to make itself visible in Rosalind’s check, whereat the brown eyes twinkled again.  “Well, what do you think of me?” they asked.

“You aren’t much like Great-uncle Allan,” said Rosalind, laughing.