"O, how full of briers is this working-day world."
On this same bright morning when Rosalind for the first time saw the
Gilpin place, Celia Fair carried her sewing, a piece of dainty lace work,
to the old rustic summer-house. It made some variety in the monotony of
things to sit here where she could lift her eyes now and then, and looking
far away across the river to the hills, let them rest on a bit of sunny
road that for a little space emerged from the shadow to disappear again on
its winding way.
On this stretch, of road the sunshine seemed always to lie warm and
bright, and to Celia it brought a sense of restfulness. Perhaps in some
far-off time the sunlight would again lie on her path.
She loved the old place, and the thought that in all probability it would
soon pass into the hands of strangers, troubled her. She had often sat
here in Patricia's Arbor, beside old Thomas Gilpin, and listened to his
reminiscences. She had been a favorite with the old man, all of the
tenderness of whose nature had spent itself upon the wife who lived only a
brief time; and in Celia's relationship to her, distant though it was, lay
the secret of his regard.
One of her earliest recollections was of taking tea at the Gilpin house in
company with Genevieve and Allan Whittredge. Mild, fair-faced Miss Anne
and her grim-visaged, cross-grained brother were a strangely assorted
pair. Celia's childish soul had been filled with awe on these occasions.
She had difficulty in keeping her seat in the stiff old haircloth chairs,
or in crossing the polished floor of the drawing-room without slipping.
At one end of this room stood the ancient spinet, long ago the property of
her own great-grandmother, which she was told would some day be hers.
Celia had been proud of this until Miss Anne, displaying her chief
treasures, Patricia's miniature and ring, remarked upon Genevieve's
likeness to her great-aunt. Genevieve, with the ring on her finger,
looked complacently over her shoulder at the long mirror, and Celia was
smitten with sudden envy. A great-grandmother called Saint Cecilia was not
half so interesting as a beautiful great-aunt with a romantic love story;
and an old and useless spinet not to be compared to a ring like
Patricia's. That the ring was to be Genevieve's she never doubted.
Allan had made fun of his sister and treated heirlooms in general with
scorn, calling Celia to look at a print of Jonah in knee breeches and shoe
buckles, emerging front the mouth of the whale. Allan always saw the fun
in things.
Between those days and the present there was a great gulf fixed. She had
resolutely put away from her all these memories, and to-day she was
annoyed that they should return in such force. They brought only pain to
her tired heart.
Her hands fell in her lap, and she gazed with unseeing eyes at the hills.
After all, Patricia, mourning her lover, had not known the bitterest
sorrow.
The thought of her work, which must be done, aroused her. "What a weak
creature I am, thinking my lot harder than that of any one else," she
exclaimed, and taking up her needle she determinedly fixed her mind on the
present. There was the suit Tom needed, and the grocery bill that should
be paid the first of the month. She must work hard and not waste time in
regrets. The summer that meant leisure and pleasure for many, meant only
added cares for her.
A surprising announcement broke in upon these dreary thoughts: "This is
the Forest of Arden!"
The voice was a sweet, girlish one, and came from somewhere behind the
arbor, but the vines grew so thick she could not get a glimpse of the
speaker. Celia went on with her work, feeling at first a little annoyed
that her quiet should be disturbed, yet the suggestion of sylvan joy in
the words grew upon her. The Forest of Arden--where they fleeted the time
carelessly--what a rest for tired spirits it seemed to offer!
"If we will, we may travel always in the Forest, where the birds sing and
the sunlight sifts through the trees--" the same voice repeated. A stir of
wind set the leaves rustling, and Celia lost the rest.
"That means it will all come right in the end."
"The people who hated each other all came to be friends in the Forest."
Fragments like these floated in to Celia. Then she heard Maurice Roberta's
voice saying, "Let's go farther down the slope." She went to the door of
the arbor and looked out. As she had suspected, Maurice's companion was
the girl she had encountered in the cemetery, Rosalind carried her hat in
her hand, and as they crossed an open space the sunshine turned her hair
to gold.
Celia went back to her work. "It will all come right in the end,"--this
was what Morgan had told her yesterday; it was strange that this child
should cross her path again, and with the same message.
"Even people who hated each other came to be friends in the Forest." To
travel always in the Forest! How restful the idea! How would it seem not
to hate anybody? To be really at peace? But it was not possible for her.
Her thoughts would persist in dwelling upon Rosalind Whittredge. Again she
recalled with shame the impulse that made her scorn the rose. She was
glad she had picked it up and carried it home. Why should she have any
feeling against Patterson Whittredge's daughter? Had not her father taken
Patterson's side in the family trouble over his marriage? Ah, but that was
long ago, and it was hard to forget that Rosalind, with her sweet, serious
eyes, was after all Mrs. Whittredge's granddaughter, Genevieve's niece.
"I wish she wasn't, and that I could see her and speak to her, and ask her
what she means by the Forest," she thought. "She is gentle and sweet; she
is not like the Whittredges. Why should I dislike her because she belongs
to them? Oh, it is dreadful to hate people!" Celia hid her face in her
hands, "but I do--I do," she added.