“Yours affectionately,

“CHARLES W. HOLLINGSWORTH.”

“Isn’t that dear of him?”

“Does he mean it really?” asked Maurice.

“What is the matter with you, Maurice?  Of course he does,” cried Belle.  “He is grand!  The detective,” and she laughed at the recollection.

“Rosalind is going home before long, and I didn’t know whether we would keep it up,” Maurice said.

“But I shall come back again next summer, and,—­oh, I hope we aren’t going to give it up!” Rosalind looked anxiously at her companions.

“Never!” cried Belle.

“No indeed,” said Jack.  “I am an Arden Forester forever.”

“A monkey forever,” growled Maurice.

“That is better than a bear, anyway,” retorted Jack.

“Maurice reminds me of the day I first talked to him through the hedge,” Rosalind remarked, smiling at him.

Maurice laughed.  “I was pretty cross that day.  I don’t mean that I want to give the society up, only we can’t meet here much longer, and it seems as if our fun was nearly over.”

“It will soon be too cold to have our meetings out of doors; let’s ask the magician if we can’t meet there,” Belle proposed.

“What fun!  I almost wish I wasn’t going home.  You must all write to me about what you do,” said Rosalind.

“We shall miss you dreadfully,” Belle said, looking pensive for a moment.

“But she hasn’t gone yet, so what is the use of thinking about something that is going to happen, when you are having a pretty good time now?” asked Jack, philosophically.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.

THE PRESIDENT.

“—­And good in everything.”

Friendship was without doubt a churchgoing community,—­the different denominations could all boast of creditable congregations on Sunday mornings,—­but on the occasion of Dr. Hollingsworth’s visit, the other churches had a mere handful to divide between them, while at the Presbyterian church chairs had to be placed in the aisles.  Such an unusual event afforded a pleasing variety in the customary Sabbath monotony.  Something of a festive air pervaded the assembly.

Celia Fair and Miss Betty Bishop, both deserters from the Episcopal church, chanced to be seated together.  Rosalind’s urgent invitation to come and hear our president preach, had brought Celia, and it was, of course, for old friendship’s sake that Miss Betty was there.

“Isn’t that Mrs. Whittredge?” she whispered to Celia, as Allan with his mother and Rosalind passed up the aisle.  “I don’t know when she has been at church before.”  Then at sight of Mrs. Molesworth Miss Betty gave a slight shrug.

A flutter of interested anticipation was noticeable when Dr. Pierce entered the pulpit accompanied by the stranger, and it must be confessed that the service preceding the sermon was gone through with perfunctorily by the greater part of the congregation.  After the notices for the week had been given, there was a general settling back and recalling of wandering attention as Dr. Hollingsworth came forward and stood in the pastor’s place at the desk.