"The stubbornness of fortune."
It was the first of the month, and a steady stream of people passed in and
out of the bank. Maurice sat on the steps leading up to the private
entrance, and with few exceptions each new-comer had a pleasant greeting
or kindly inquiry for him.
Miss Betty Bishop rustling out, bank book in hand, called, "How are you,
Maurice? When are you and Katherine coming to take tea with me? Let me
know and I'll have waffles."
The cabinet-maker came to the foot of the steps to ask about the lame
knee, and shook his head in sympathy with Maurice's doleful face.
Colonel Parton, a tall, gray-mustached man, accompanied by two hunting
dogs, hailed him: "Not going with the boys? Ah, I forgot your knee. Too
bad! Jack's got the dandiest new fishing-rod you ever saw."
"As if I didn't know it," growled Maurice, us the colonel entered the
bank.
The next person to accost him was Miss Celia Fair. She hadn't any bank
business, but seeing Maurice as she passed, stopped to speak to him. She
sat down beside him and tried in her pretty, soft way to cheer him.
"Don't look so gloomy, dear; you know if you are careful you will soon be
all right again," she said.
At this Maurice poured forth all his disappointment at not being able to
go with the Parton boys on their excursion down the bay.
"I am just as sorry for you as I can be," said Celia, clasping her hands
in her lap--such slender hands--and looking far away as if she were tired
of everything near by. It was only for a moment, then she said with a
little laugh, "You can't possibly understand, Maurice, but I shouldn't
mind a sprained knee in the least; I think I could even enjoy it, if I
hadn't any more responsibility than you have."
"But you don't care to go fishing," he suggested.
"Oh, yes, I do; I like to fish." With a smile she said good-by, and went
away.
After this Maurice settled down into deeper despondency than before. He
had refused an invitation to drive, hid treated with bitter scorn
Katherine's suggestion that he might like to go out to the creek with her
and Blossom. "You could ride in the stage, you know, and have to walk only
the least little bit," she said.
"Thank you; it is _such_ fun to throw stones in the water," he replied,
with elaborate politeness.
That Maurice was badly spoiled was no secret. The only boy in the family,
with bright, engaging ways when things went to please him, he had been
petted and humored by his parents, given up to by Katherine, and treated
as a leader by his boy friends, until he had come to look upon his own
pleasure as the most important thing in the universe. Not that he realized
this. He would have been greatly surprised to hear he was selfish.
The accident by which his knee had been sprained severely was an
experience as trying as it was new to him. At first the petting he
received at home, and the attentions of his friends, added to his sense of
importance and made it endurable, but this could not continue
indefinitely. Ball playing and other sports must go on, and Maurice, to
his aggrieved surprise, found they could go on very well without him.
This morning his mother had expostulated mildly. "My son, you ought not to
make yourself so miserable. You could not be more unhappy if you were to
be lame always."
"It is _now_ I care about," he replied petulantly.
"I don't know what to do with Maurice," he overheard her say to his father
in the hall.
"Let him alone. I am ashamed of him," was Mr. Roberts's reply.
And now, deserted and abused, Maurice was very miserable, and when he
could stand it no longer he sought a distant spot in the garden and threw
himself face down in the grass.
He had been lying here some time when a voice apparently quite near asked,
"Have you hurt yourself?"
Lifting his flushed, unhappy face, he saw peeping at him through the hedge
the girl Katherine had been so interested in on Sunday. She, too, was
lying on the grass, and her fair hair was spread out around her like a
veil. Maurice raised himself on his elbow and surveyed her in surprise,
forgetting to reply.
"What is the matter?" she asked again, looking at him with a pair of
serious gray eyes.
"Nothing," he answered.
The gray eyes grew merry. Rosalind laughed, as she said, "Then you ought
not to groan. I thought when I heard you, perhaps you had fallen from a
tree."
"I wasn't groaning," he protested, feeling ashamed.
"Maybe you call it sighing, but it was dreadfully deep."
"Well, I think a fellow has a right to sigh when he can't do anything or
go anywhere; and everybody else is having a good time," Maurice felt
anxious to vindicate himself.
"I am not having a good time," said Rosalind, "at least not very; but then
you know if you stay in the Forest of Arden, something pleasant is bound
to happen before long."
Maurice stared at her blankly.
"Perhaps you don't know the story," Rosalind suggested.
"What story?"
"Its real name is 'As You Like It,' but I call it 'The Story of the
Forest.'"
"What is it about?"
"Oh,--about a banished duke, who lived in the Forest, like Robin Hood, you
know, with a lot of people who were fond of him. He had a daughter, named
Rosalind, and after a while she was banished too and went to look for her
father in the Forest. Her cousin Celia and a funny clown, Touchstone, went
with her, and they were all disguised. And--well, there is a great deal
more to it--but they were all cheerful and brave--everybody is in the
Forest of Arden, because they are sure there is good in everything if you
only try to find it."
"But that is all a story. It isn't true."
"Oh, yes, it is."
"There wasn't a bit of good in hurting my knee and having the whole summer
spoiled." Maurice's tone was undeniably fretful.
"If you had been banished as Rosalind was, I suppose you would not have
thought there was any good in that; but she didn't cry about it. She made
the best of it, and had a good time in spite of it."
"Who says I was crying?" Maurice demanded angrily.
Rosalind opened her gray eyes wide, then she sat up and tossed back her
hair. Maurice felt convicted of rudeness. Was she going? He hoped not, for
he wished to talk to her.
"I suppose I am rather cross," he acknowledged; "but don't you think it is
pretty hard to hurt your knee and have to walk with a crutch, and stay at
home when the other boys go fishing?"
"Yes, indeed. Does it hurt much?" Rosalind asked, with ready sympathy.
"No, not now; it did at first, but the doctor says it will be five or six
months before it is well again."
"Then it isn't for always? That is something good."
Maurice somehow felt uncomfortable. He did not wish the emphasis laid on
the good. It seemed wise to change the subject. "What a lot of hair you
have," he remarked.
"It has been washed, and grandmamma said I might dry it in the sun,"
Rosalind explained, shaking her head so vigorously she was enveloped in a
shining cloud.
"Isn't it a great bother? Kit hates to have hers braided."
"Who is Kit?"
"She is my sister Katherine."
"It must be nice to have a sister. I haven't anybody but father and Cousin
Louis, and of course they are better than any one else. There are
grandmamma and Aunt Genevieve, but I am not very well acquainted with them
yet. I should love to have some children related to me."
I have a little sister, too; her name is Blossom. That is, her real name
is Mary, and we call her Blossom."
"Kit and Blossom; and what is your name?" Rosalind asked.
"Maurice Roberts."
Rosalind tossed back her hair and began to twist it into a shining rope.
"I am Rosalind Whittredge," she said. "I should not think you would ever
be unhappy," she added.
"Do you know, I saw you last Sunday when you were studying something. Kit
and I peeped at you through the hedge."
"I was learning a hymn for grandmamma. Why didn't you speak to me?"
"I didn't know whether you'd like it."
"Why, of course I should have liked it. I was beginning to think that day
I should never get acquainted with any one, and I was feeling dreadfully
lonesome when the magician came in."
"The magician?" Maurice exclaimed. Certainly this was a singular girl who
talked about magicians in an everyday tone.