“Come in for a while,” she said.

The air was crisp, but the sunshine was bright, and the bench under the bare branches of the white birch seemed more inviting than indoors.  As they took their seat there, Rosalind said gayly, “Father will be here this week.  We are not sure what day.”

“And then you will have to go,” Maurice added discontentedly.

“Yes, and I am partly sorry and partly glad.  I am so glad I came to Friendship, Maurice.  Just think how many friends I have made!”

“How long ago it seems—­that day when you spoke to me through the hedge.  You must have thought I was a dreadful muff,” said Maurice.

Rosalind laughed.  “I thought you were cross.”

“I was in a horrid temper, but I didn’t know how horrid until you told me the story and I read in the book what your cousin wrote about bearing hard things bravely.  I suppose if it had not been for you, I should have gone on being a beast.”

“I was feeling pretty cross myself that day.  I didn’t know then what a pleasant place Friendship is.  I think I have found a great deal of joy by the way, as Cousin Louis said,” Rosalind continued meditatively.

“And I thought my summer was spoiled,” Maurice added.

“It just shows you can never tell,” Rosalind concluded wisely.

“Are you sure you won’t forget us when you go away?” Maurice wanted to say “me,” instead of “us,” but a sudden shyness prevented.

“Why, Maurice, I couldn’t!  Especially you; for you were my first friend.”  The gray eyes looked into his frankly and happily.

After Maurice had gone, Rosalind still sat there in the wintry sunshine.  Things seemed very quiet just now, with Uncle Allan away for a week and Aunt Genevieve not yet returned.  She and her grandmother were keeping each other company, and becoming better acquainted than ever before.  Mrs. Whittredge’s glance often rested upon her granddaughter with a sort of wistful affection, and once, when their eyes met, Rosalind, with a quick impulse, had gone to her side and put her arms around her.  Mrs. Whittredge returned the caress, saying, “I shall be sorry to give you up, dearie.”

On another occasion Rosalind had told how surprised she had been to find that her grandmother did not wear caps and do knitting work.  “But I like you a great deal better as you are,” she added.

Mrs. Whittredge smiled.  “I fear I am in every way far from being an ideal grandmother,” she said.

Rosalind thought of all this, her eyes on the dismantled garden.  The flower beds were bare, the shrubs done up in straw, the fountain dry, and yet something recalled the summer day when she had sat just here learning her hymn.  She remembered her old dreams of Friendship, and now she decided that the reality was best.  She shut her eyes and tried to think just how she had felt that Sunday afternoon.

“What is the matter, little girl?” The magician’s words, but not his voice; nor was it his face she looked into.