Rosalind was left to go her ways; if she appeared at meal-time, no questions were asked, Miss Herbert, indeed, shook her head at such liberty. A girl of Rosalind's age should be learning something useful, instead of running about the village or poring over story books. She could not know that with a certain old play for a textbook the children she thought so harum-scarum were learning brave lessons this summer.
Rosalind was happy. The hours when she was not with one or all of these new friends of hers were few, and these she usually spent in the garden, which she was beginning to love, with a book. She had discovered some old books of her father's, given to him in his boyhood, with his name and the date in them, in itself enough to cast a halo over the most stupid tale.
When the sun shone on the garden seat beside the white birch, there was another favorite spot in the shade of a tall cedar, where an occasional stir of wind brought the spray from the fountain against her face.
Yes, in spite of the puzzles, Rosalind was beginning to love Friendship. It was weeks since Great-uncle Allan had seemed to frown on her, and even the griffins wore a friendlier look; as for the rose, she had come to doubt the evidence of her own eyes since that afternoon at the magician's when Miss Fair had shown such friendliness.
The summer so dreary in prospect to Maurice bade fair to be endurable after all. Rosalind's gray eyes, now merry, now serious, but always seeking the good in things, her contagious belief in the Forest, had stirred his manliness, making him conscious of his fretfulness, and then ashamed. His mother, who had dreaded the long holiday, wondered at his content. Katherine wondered a little too. The Forest of Arden made a very nice game, and it was pleasant to have Maurice in a good humor, but she did not quite understand the connection.
Soon after the close of school Colonel Parton took his two older boys away on a western trip, leaving Jack with no resource but Maurice and the girls. The two boys were great chums, and as Maurice's knee made active sports impossible, Jack, too, gave them up for the most part.
As for Belle, her indifference to Rosalind had turned into ardent admiration. She and Charlotte Ellis had a sharp dispute over the new-comer. Charlotte confessed she was disappointed in her, and pronounced her odd, all of which Belle deeply resented, the result being a decided coolness between them.
"I am as glad as I can be Charlotte is going away this summer," she was heard to remark.
"She can't be as glad as I am that we aren't going to be in the same town," was Charlotte's retort when the speech was repeated to her.
The cleverness of Maurice and Rosalind was duly impressed upon the other three when the constitution of The Arden Foresters was read, and after careful consideration it had been copied in the blank-book, and beneath it the members signed their names. The excitement of Commencement week being over, a meeting was called to decide on a badge.