"MY DEAR ROSALIND: I am coming back to Friendship in a
few days, and I want to ask if the Arden Foresters will admit a
new member to their circle? I am greatly interested in what I
have heard of it. I have been travelling in the Forest for a
good many years, with just an occasional lapse into the desert,
but I should like the right to wear an oak leaf and have my name
in the Arden Foresters' book, on the page with the magician's.
"Hoping that this is not asking too much, I am
"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.