Mrs. Whittredge lifted her head.  Her face was drawn and white.

“I cannot forget,” she said; “it is my misery.  But I have no wish to make other lives as unhappy as my own.  Will you believe me when I say I regret the wrong I did, and that I want to interfere with no one’s happiness hereafter?”

“I will believe it,” Celia said, holding out her hand.

Mrs. Whittredge did not refuse it; but her own was very cold in Celia’s clasp.  Drawing her veil over her face, without another word she left the house.

Celia sat still, dazed by the sudden onward sweep of things.  A meaning, a possible motive, beneath Mrs. Whittredge’s words occurred to her as her heart began to beat more quietly.  “To interfere with no one’s happiness hereafter.”  Could Allan—­but no, she would not let herself think it.  She would stay in the Forest, and work and wait, and trust in its beneficent spell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH.

BETTER THAN DREAMS.

                   “I like this place,
    And willingly could waste my time in it.”

The engagement of Miss Betty Bishop and Dr. Hollingsworth was announced.  As Miss Betty said, there was no use in trying to keep it a secret with Mrs. Parton spreading her suspicions abroad.

“If you had confided in me and asked me not to tell, I shouldn’t have breathed it,” that lady protested.

“Oh, yes, you would,” Miss Betty said, laughing.  “You know you tell everything; but, after all, there’s no harm done, and no reason why it should not be known.  I don’t blame people for being surprised, either.  I am surprised myself, and I see the absurdity, but—­”

“There is no absurdity about it.  I am delighted.  Dr. Hollingsworth is charming.  I’d be willing to marry him myself if it wasn’t for the colonel, and you are going to be as happy as happy can be.”  Mrs. Parton laughed her pleasant laugh, clearly overjoyed at what seemed to her the good fortune of her friend.

Rosalind first heard the news from Belle.  “Why,” she said, “if he marries Cousin Betty, the president will be related to me.”

“Let’s frame Dr. Hollingsworth’s picture and give it to her,” Maurice suggested.

This was hailed as a brilliant idea, and that afternoon the five might have been seen in the picture store in search of a frame for the stolen photograph.  It was an excellent likeness of the president, and an equally good one of black Bob, who, happening to pass at the critical moment, had been included unintentionally.

The proprietor of the store, getting an inkling of the joke, hunted up a small frame which, with the help of a mat, answered very well.  Then the Arden Foresters proceeded to Miss Betty’s, where they delivered the package into Sophy’s hands and scampered away, their courage not being equal to an encounter with her mistress.

At the bank gate they separated, Belle going in with Katherine to practise a duet they were learning, and Jack hurrying home with the fear of his Latin lesson before his eyes.  Maurice walked on with Rosalind.