d.

Maurice pave him a thump with his crutch. "You aren't much of a hero,
either," he said. "Who took the roof off when his tooth was pulled?"

"But that hurt," said Jack, still laughing.

"I am willing to own I have been making an awful fuss, but someway I
hadn't thought about it, and I am willing to try if the rest are."

"But I haven't any trouble," said Katherine.

"Everybody has hard things to bear sometimes," replied Rosalind.

"Doesn't Maurice ever snub you?" asked irrepressible Jack.

"What shall we call our society?" Rosalind inquired, looking around the
group for suggestions.

Maurice tore a leaf from his note-book and divided it carefully into five
parts, handing a slip to each of his companions.

"Now be still for a while and think, and then write down a name."

All was quiet for a time. "Now," said Maurice, "what is yours, Rosalind?"

"The Secret Society of the Forest," said Rosalind.

"Sons and Daughters of the Forest," announced Belle.

"The Forest Society," said Jack.

Katherine had not been able to think of a name. Maurice's was "The Arden
Foresters," suggested, he said, by Belle's "Robin Hood."

"I believe it is the best," said Rosalind, and so they all agreed finally,
and the new society was named.

"Now we must have a book and write in it what we promise," said Belle.

"Let's appoint Rosalind and Maurice to draw up a--what do you call it?"
suggested Jack.

"I know," said Belle; "a constitution."

"I meant to go into Patricia's Arbor, and I forgot," remarked Rosalind, as
they walked home together.

"I thought I saw some one sitting there when Belle and I passed," said
Katherine.

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

IN PATRICIA'S ARBOR.

"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 al