ation 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,
leanin