“Heavens! was that your idea of me?  And I expected you to be a child of tender age, although I should have known better.  It is nearly fourteen years since Pat went away.”

“Uncle Allan, did you know my mother?” It was the first time Rosalind had mentioned her mother since she had been in Friendship.  She could not have explained her silence any more than she could this sudden question.

“I did not know her, Rosalind.  I wish I might have.  I saw her once, and I have never forgotten her face.”

“I can remember her just a little, but father and Cousin Louis have told me about her, and I have her picture.”

“I think,” said Uncle Allan, confidently, “that we are going to be friends.  Tell me how you like Friendship.”

“I like it now.  I was dreadfully lonely at first, till things began to happen.  Then there was Cousin Betty’s tea party, where I met Belle and Jack and the rest, and now—­oh, I like it very much!  It is a funny place.  Aunt Genevieve says you don’t like it any better than she does.”  Rosalind’s tone was questioning.

“I believe it does seem rather a stupid old town,” he acknowledged.  “What do you find interesting about it?”

“There is the magician and his shop; and the out of doors is so beautiful—­almost like the country; and the houses are different from those in the city; and there is the will, and the lost ring.”  Rosalind suddenly remembered her uncle’s connection with the ring.

He did not seem to understand, for he asked, “What ring?” then added, “Oh, you mean the Gilpin will.  Who has told you about that?”

“Cousin Betty; and she told us the story of Patricia’s ring, Uncle Allan, don’t you wish we could find it?”

Allan Whittredge smiled at the eager face.  “I can’t say I care much about it,” he replied; then seeing her disappointment, he added, “It was a handsome old ring.  Should you like to have it?”

“I’d like to see it; but of course it wasn’t meant for me.  Cousin Betty said—­” Rosalind paused, for the expression on her uncle’s face was more than ever like Aunt Genevieve, and he exclaimed impatiently, “Stuff!”

She felt rather hurt.  She had expected him to be as interested in the ring as she was.  What did he mean by “stuff”?  And why didn’t he like Friendship?  Rosalind fell to pondering all this, sitting in the corner of the bench, looking down at her hands, crossed in her lap.

After some minutes’ silence she felt her chin lifted until her eyes met the gaze of the merriest brown ones, from which all trace of disdain or impatience was gone.

“What are you thinking about so soberly?  Are you disappointed in me, after all?”

Rosalind laughed.  “I am just sorry you don’t like Friendship.”

“Perhaps it is because I have been away so long.  I used to like it when I was a boy.”

“Can’t you turn into a boy again?”

“Perhaps I might, if you will show me how.”