Rosalind, walking in the garden next morning, heard her name called from the other side of the hedge.
"Is that you, Maurice?" she asked, bending to peep through the narrow opening where they had first become acquainted.
"Yes; don't you want to go up to the Gilpin place?"
"I'd rather go there than anywhere," Rosalind assented eagerly, "I am so interested in Aunt Patricia and the ring."
"The house is closed, you know, but the grounds are pretty. I'll meet you at the gate whenever you are ready," Maurice answered.
He considered Rosalind his special friend by right of first acquaintance, and had no thought of allowing Katherine or Belle to get the advantage of him, and for this reason he had planned the expedition. He also wished to talk over "As You Like It" without interruption, and was decidedly provoked when she called to Katherine, who was shelling peas on the side porch, "We are going to the Gilpin place; can't you come when you have finished?"
Katherine, who had tried in vain to find out from Maurice where he was going, was more than delighted at the invitation.
"It would have been nicer if we had stayed to help her," Rosalind remarked, as they walked up the street.
"Girls' work," Maurice growled.
"Well, I am a girl. And why shouldn't boys shell peas? They eat them."