gray," remarked Belle. "But I know what you mean, father; she
looks as if she saw things far away. She was looking so this afternoon,
and when I asked her what she was thinking about she said 'the forest.' I
don't know what she meant, but Morgan knew."

"You have plenty of sense," said her father, looking fondly upon her.

"Of course I have, I am your child," laughed Belle, jumping up to give him
a hug.

CHAPTER TWELFTH.

THE GILPIN PLACE.

"This is the Forest of Arden."

Rosalind, walking in the garden next morning, heard her name called from
the other side of the hedge.

"Is that you, Maurice?" she asked, bending to peep through the narrow
opening where they had first become acquainted.

"Yes; don't you want to go up to the Gilpin place?"

"I'd rather go there than anywhere," Rosalind assented eagerly, "I am so
interested in Aunt Patricia and the ring."

"The house is closed, you know, but the grounds are pretty. I'll meet you
at the gate whenever you are ready," Maurice answered.

He considered Rosalind his special friend by right of first acquaintance,
and had no thought of allowing Katherine or Belle to get the advantage of
him, and for this reason he had planned the expedition. He also wished to
talk over "As You Like It" without interruption, and was decidedly
provoked when she called to Katherine, who was shelling peas on the side
porch, "We are going to the Gilpin place; can't you come when you have
finished?"

Katherine, who had tried in vain to find out from Maurice where he was
going, was more than delighted at the invitation.

"It would have been nicer if we had stayed to help her," Rosalind
remarked, as they walked up the street.

"Girls' work," Maurice growled.

"Well, I am a girl. And why shouldn't boys shell peas? They eat them."

Maurice scorned such logic, but her eyes were so merry it was with an
effort he kept himself from smiling.

"Katherine is such a bother," he said.

"I like Katherine; she is so pleasant," Rosalind observed, with a side
glance at her companion.

"Perhaps you'd rather go with her and have me stay at home?" he suggested,
with much dignity.

"And shell peas?" Rosalind laughed.

What a provoking girl this was! And yet he liked her, and somehow at the
vision of himself shelling peas he couldn't help laughing, too, and thus
harmony was restored.

After climbing the hill, a good deal of exertion for Maurice with his
crutch, they paused to rest on