"Oh, yes, for a while. I am not sure she doesn't yet."
"Cousin Louis says that is one of the advantages of the 'Forest of Arden,'
you can believe in all those delightful things."
"Were there fairies there?" asked Belle. "I don't remember any."
"There would have been if occasion had called for them," Celia answered.
"But you don't want to believe things if they aren't true, do you?"
Katherine looked puzzled. "I wish there were fairies now, but I know there aren't."
"You can't prove there aren't," asserted Jack, mischievously.
"Why, Jack, you know there aren't any fairies really."
"I said you couldn't prove it."
"How can you say they do not exist unless you have seen one not existing?
Isn't that the argument in 'Water Babies'?" laughed Celia, as she carried the currants into the kitchen. "It is the difference between fact and fancy, Katherine," she said, coming back.
"I love to pretend things," said Rosalind.
"So do I," echoed Belle.
"Fancy does more than that, it really makes things beautiful. For instance, it makes the difference between a plain, straight letter such as you see in the newspaper and such a letter as I was embroidering yesterday. Some one's fancy saw the plain S ornamented with curving lines and sprays of flowers, and so it came to be made so."
"That makes me think of those beautiful books the monks used to make,"
said Maurice.
"The illuminated manuscripts, you mean? That word expresses what fancy does for us,--it illuminates the plain facts, and fills them with beauty."
"Oh, Miss Celia, that is a lovely idea," cried Rosalind. "I must remember it to tell Cousin Louis."
"I fear be wouldn't find it very new," Celia answered, smiling.
By noon the fruit was all picked over, and as Celia stood at the gate watching her helpers out of sight, old Sally came laboring up the walk.
"Law, honey, look like I couldn't rest from studyin' how you was gwine to git them berries done, an' I 'lowed, misery or no misery, I was comin' to help you," she announced.
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.
A NEW COMRADE.
"I know you are a gentleman of good conceit."
Rosalind and Maurice sat on the garden bench discussing "The Young Marooners," one of the story books found in the garret.
"I shouldn't like to be carried off by a big fish as they were, but I do think some sort of an adventure would be interesting. Don't you?" asked Rosalind.
"We'll have to do something," Maurice agreed, "Don't you wish we could get inside the Gilpin house? Mr. Wells, the teller in our bank, sleeps there.
I wish he would drop the key."
"Grandmamma says it will be open for people to go through before the sale, but then it will be too late to look for the ring. Belle is so good at thinking of things, I wish she would find a way for us to get in,"
Rosalind added.
A bell was heard ringing on the other side of the hedge, and Maurice rose. "Dinner is ready," he said.
Rosalind walked to the gate with him. "Uncle Allan is coming to-morrow,"
she remarked, "and I just wonder what he is like."
Turning toward the house again, she became aware of a stranger standing beside the griffins. He was not waiting to get in, for the door was open behind him, and furthermore he had the air of being at home. Something in his height and the breadth of his shoulders suggested her father, and as she drew nearer a certain resemblance to Aunt Genevieve developed.
He watched her approach with a look of puzzled interest. "Surely, this isn't Rosalind," he said.
Rosalind paused on the bottom step. "Why, yes, it is. Are you Uncle Allan?"
"A great tall girl like you my niece? Pat's daughter? Impossible!" There was a twinkle in his eye. Clearly, Uncle Allan was a tease.
"I suppose I shall have to be identified," said Rosalind, merrily.
"I begin to see a look of Pat about you." He came down the steps now and took her hand. "Let's sit here and get acquainted," he said, leading the way to the bench under the birch tree.
Two pairs of eyes, the brown and the gray, looked into each other steadily and soberly for a few seconds, then a dimple began to make itself visible in Rosalind's check, whereat the brown eyes twinkled again. "Well, what do you think of me?" they asked.
"You aren't much like Great-uncle Allan," said Rosalind, laughing.
"Heavens! was that your idea of me? And I expected you to be a child of tender age, although I should have known better. It is nearly fourteen years since Pat went away."
"Uncle Allan, did you know my mother?" It was the first time Rosalind had mentioned her mother since she had been in Friendship. She could not have explained her silence any more than she could this sudden question.
"I did not know her, Rosalind. I wish I might have. I saw her once, and I have never forgotten her face."
"I can remember her just a little, but father and Cousin Louis have told me about her, and I have her picture."
"I think," said Uncle Allan, confidently, "that we are going to be friends. Tell me how you like Friendship."
"I like it now. I was dreadfully lonely at first, till things began to happen. Then there was Cousin Betty's tea party, where I met Belle and Jack and the rest, and now--oh, I like it very much! It is a funny place.
Aunt Genevieve says you don't like it any better than she does."
Rosalind's tone was questioning.
"I believe it does seem rather a stupid old town," he acknowledged. "What do you find interesting about it?"
"There is the magician and his shop; and the out of doors is so beautiful--almost like the country; and the houses are different from those in the city; and there is the will, and the lost ring." Rosalind suddenly remembered her uncle's connection with the ring.
He did not seem to understand, for he asked, "What ring?" then added, "Oh, you mean the Gilpin will. Who has told you about that?"