“Why—­” began Rosalind, stopping short, “it looks like—­Why, Dr. Hollingsworth!  I didn’t know you were here!”

At the same moment the gentleman started up, exclaiming, “Well, Rosalind, they said you were out of town.  I am very glad to see you,” and they met and clasped hands like warm friends.

“Children!” cried Rosalind, turning to her companions, “this is our president, Dr. Hollingsworth.”

“And these are the young people who took my photograph yesterday,” Dr. Hollingsworth observed gravely.  There was a twinkle in his eye, however.

By this time Mr. Whittredge had arrived on the scene and was introduced.

“So this is the detective,” he said.

The culprits looked at each other and meditated flight, but changed their minds when Dr. Hollingsworth shook hands with them, and said he knew how it was to have a new camera and want to take everything in sight, and that he really felt complimented.

Belle thought she wouldn’t have minded, except for the detective part of it, over which Mr. Whittredge made so much fun.

The ring was exhibited, and the whole matter made clear after a while, and Dr. Hollingsworth said he was glad to have figured in any capacity in such an interesting occurrence.

“And how in the world did it get in the spinet?” asked Miss Betty.  “I believe Cousin Thomas put it there himself, as a practical joke.”

Miss Betty might have been holding a reception that morning, so full of people did her small porch appear, and so continuous was the hum of voices.

Dr. Hollingsworth, it seemed, had been in the habit of visiting in Friendship twenty years ago, and finding himself in the vicinity, he had made it convenient to call upon his old friends; but, as he said, things had been rather against him.  His college friend, the Presbyterian minister, was away on his vacation, Miss Bishop out of town for the day, and Rosalind, he did not know where.

“And so there was nothing for me to do but loaf about that first afternoon,” he explained, “but little did I think to what dark suspicions I was laying myself open,” and he smiled at Belle.

“Cousin Betty, you never told me you knew our president,” Rosalind said reproachfully.

Miss Hetty laughed.  “You see it had been such a long, long time, Rosalind—­”

“That she had forgotten me,” added the president.

“Oh, no, I hadn’t,” she insisted.

They all felt that they should like to see more of him, and that it was too bad he had to leave on the five o’clock train.  The last hour was spent with the Whittredges, and Rosalind and Allan accompanied him to the station.  Here, while they waited, Rosalind had an opportunity to tell him about the society of Arden Foresters, in which he seemed greatly interested, and was saying he should like to belong, when the gong sounded the approach of the train, and there was only time for good-by.