"But there is the ring. It is not so very long ago since that was here. Don't you wish we could go into the house and look for it? I believe it is there somewhere;" Rosalind spoke with assurance.
"But they searched every nook and cranny," said Maurice.
"If it were in a story, there would be a secret drawer somewhere. I wonder if Aunt Patricia isn't sorry it is lost." Rosalind sat in silence for a few moments, looking down at the town. "I like Friendship," she said. "There are a great many interesting things happening here, more than ever happen at home."
The Gilpin house stood on an elevation of its own, from which the ground sloped gently in all directions. Its late owner had cared little for flowers and shrubs, but had taken pride in his trees, which still preserved the dignity of their forest days. At the back of the house there was a view of the little winding river, and halfway down the slope a once flourishing vegetable garden had turned itself into a picturesque wilderness of weeds. The charm of it all grew upon Rosalind as they walked about.
"I should like to live here, Maurice. I like it better than our garden—grandmamma's, I mean. Let's sit on the grass, where we can see the river."
Not far from them was the rustic summer-house which Miss Betty had called Patricia's arbor.
"Maurice," Rosalind exclaimed, with conviction in her tone, "this is the Forest of Arden."
"You talk about it as if it were all true, instead of only a story," said Maurice.
"But it is true—one kind of true. Cousin Louis explained it to me once—ever so long ago, when I had a sore throat and couldn't go to the Christmas tree, at the president's. I cried and was dreadfully cross, and wouldn't look at my Christmas things; and after a while he asked me if I should like to live in the Forest of Arden. I was so surprised I stopped crying, and he told me that when we were brave and happy, we made a pleasant place for ourselves, where lovely things could happen, and when we were cross and miserable we made a desert for ourselves, where pleasant things couldn't possibly come about, just as if you want flowers to grow, you have to have good soil.
"Cousin Louis can tell things in a very interesting way, and by and by I began to feel ashamed, and I made up my mind to try it; and when I told father, he said he would try too, and we found it was really true, Maurice. He and Cousin Louis and I—oh, we had such good times! We even told the president about it, and Cousin Louis said he was going to start a secret society of the Forest of Arden. Then he was ill, and everything stopped.