"So far? Coming home soon?"
With a mournful countenance she shook her head.
Morgan stood looking down on her with a smile that no longer seemed
uncanny. Indeed, there was something almost sweet in the rugged face as he
repeated, "Mr. Pat's little girl, well, well," as if it were quite
incredible.
Rosalind longed to ask at least a dozen questions, but it is dampening to
one's ardor to have to spell every word, and she only nodded and smiled in
her turn as she handed back the tablet.
"I wish father had taught me to talk on my fingers," she thought, feeling
that one branch of her education had been neglected. "Perhaps Uncle Allan
will, when he comes."
She watched the odd figure till it disappeared around a turn in the trim
garden path, then she picked up the big red pillow which had fallen on the
grass, and replacing it in one corner of the bench, curled herself up
against it. The hymn book lay forgotten.
"I believe things are really beginning to happen," she said to herself.
"You need not pretend they are not, for they are," she added, shaking her
finger at the griffins with their provoking lack of expression. "You
wouldn't make friends with anybody, not to save their lives, and it seemed
as if I were never to get acquainted with a soul, when here I have met the
magician in the most surprising way. And to think I didn't know him!"
The dream spirit was abroad in the garden. Across the lawn the shadows
made mysterious progress; the sunlight seemed sifted through an enchanted
veil, and like the touch of fairy fingers was the summer breeze against
Rosalind's cheek, as with her head against the red pillow, she travelled
for the first time in her life back into the past.
Back to the dear old library where two students worked, and where from the
windows one could see the tiled roofs of the university. Back to the world
of dreams where dwelt that friendly host of story-book people, where only
a few short weeks ago Friendship, too, with its winding shady streets and
this same stately garden and the griffins, had belonged as truly as did
the Forest where that other Rosalind, loveliest of all story people,
wandered.
Friendship was no longer a dream, and Rosalind, her head against the red
pillow, was beginning to think that dreams were best.
"If we choose, we may travel always in the Forest, where the birds sing
and the sunlight sifts through the trees."
These words of Cousin Louis's in his introduction to the old story pleased
Rosalind's fancy. She liked to shut her eyes and think of the Forest and
the brave-hearted company gathered there, and always this brought before
her the fair face of the miniature on her father's desk and a faint, sweet
memory of clasping arms.
When the doctor with a grave face had said that only rest and change of
scene could restore Cousin Louis's health, and when Rosalind understood
that this must mean for her separation from both her dear companions, it
was to the Forest she had turned.
"I'll pretend I am banished like Rosalind in the story," she had said,
leaning against her father's shoulder, as he looked over the proofs of
"The Life of Shakespeare" on which Cousin Louis had worked too hard. "Then
I'll know I am certain to find you sometime."
Her father's arm had drawn her close,--she liked to recall it now, and
how, when she added, "But I wish I had Celia and Touchstone to go with
me," he had answered, "You are certain to find pleasant people in the
Forest of Arden, little girl." And putting aside the proofs, he had talked
to her of her grandmother and the old town of Friendship.
She had been almost a week in Friendship now, and--well, things were not
altogether as she had pictured them. Silver locks and lace caps,
arm-chairs and some sort of fluffy knitting work, had been a part of her
idea of a grandmother, and lo! her own grandmother was erect and slender,
with not a thread of gray in her dark hair, nor a line in her handsome
face.
She was kind--oh, yes, but so sad in her heavy crepe. Aunt Genevieve in
her trailing gowns was charming to behold, but no more company for
Rosalind--at least not much more--than the griffins. Miss Herbert was not
a merry, comfortable person like their own Mrs. Browne at home. The house
was very quiet. The garden was beautiful, but she longed to be outside its
tall iron gates; and she longed--how she longed--for her old companions!
Cousin Louis had given her her favorite story in a binding of soft
leather, delicious to hold against one's cheek, and her father had added a
copy of the beautiful miniature. With these treasures she had set out upon
her journey. But she had begun to feel as if in the great Forest she had
lost her way, when the friendly face of the magician reassured her.
The sound of sweeping draperies broke in upon her thoughts. It was Aunt
Genevieve, and she had not learned her hymn. Picking up her book, she
stole swiftly across the grass till she was hidden by some tall shrubbery.
Before her was a high hedge of privet; beyond it, among the trees, the
chimneys of a red brick house.
Walking back and forth, Rosalind began to study in earnest. Looking first
at her book and then up at the blue sky, she repeated:--
"'Lo! such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod.
Whose secret heart with influence sweet
Is upward drawn to God.'"