Belle gazed thoughtfully across the lawn.  “I like her,” she answered, “but she is funny.  I suppose it is because she hasn’t gone much to school.  She isn’t like Charlotte, or Katherine, or me.  She isn’t prim, and yet—­it is queer, father, but she makes me feel as I do when I am with Miss Celia—­like behaving.”

The colonel laughed his hearty ha, ha!  “I hope you’ll cultivate her society,” he said, adding, “she is like Pat, as high-toned a fellow as ever lived.  He was something of a dreamer, too, and this child has the eyes of a poet.”

“They are gray,” remarked Belle.  “But I know what you mean, father; she looks as if she saw things far away.  She was looking so this afternoon, and when I asked her what she was thinking about she said ‘the forest.’  I don’t know what she meant, but Morgan knew.”

“You have plenty of sense,” said her father, looking fondly upon her.

“Of course I have, I am your child,” laughed Belle, jumping up to give him a hug.

CHAPTER TWELFTH.

The Gilpin place.

“This is the Forest of Arden.”

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.”

Maurice scorned such logic, but her eyes were so merry it was with an effort he kept himself from smiling.

“Katherine is such a bother,” he said.

“I like Katherine; she is so pleasant,” Rosalind observed, with a side glance at her companion.

“Perhaps you’d rather go with her and have me stay at home?” he suggested, with much dignity.

“And shell peas?” Rosalind laughed.