"I know," said Belle; "a constitution."
"I meant to go into Patricia's Arbor, and I forgot," remarked Rosalind, as they walked home together.
"I thought I saw some one sitting there when Belle and I passed," said Katherine.
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
IN PATRICIA'S ARBOR.
"O, how full of briers is this working-day world."
On this same bright morning when Rosalind for the first time saw the Gilpin place, Celia Fair carried her sewing, a piece of dainty lace work, to the old rustic summer-house. It made some variety in the monotony of things to sit here where she could lift her eyes now and then, and looking far away across the river to the hills, let them rest on a bit of sunny road that for a little space emerged from the shadow to disappear again on its winding way.
On this stretch, of road the sunshine seemed always to lie warm and bright, and to Celia it brought a sense of restfulness. Perhaps in some far-off time the sunlight would again lie on her path.
She loved the old place, and the thought that in all probability it would soon pass into the hands of strangers, troubled her. She had often sat here in Patricia's Arbor, beside old Thomas Gilpin, and listened to his reminiscences. She had been a favorite with the old man, all of the tenderness of whose nature had spent itself upon the wife who lived only a brief time; and in Celia's relationship to her, distant though it was, lay the secret of his regard.