ia. Allan must do as his
mother wished and go abroad. Time would show of what stuff their love was
made, he said.

She had been so happy. She had been glad no one knew. Her happiness was
all her own.

Then had come Judge Whittredge's illness, the trouble about the Gilpin
will, and the cruel slander that had crushed her father. The brief letter
with which she returned Allan's letters and ring, was the result of her
bitter resentment and grief. In her sorrow over her father's death she
told herself her love was dead, and for a time she believed it. Now she
knew it was not so.

"At least, I will be honest with myself. I do care. Perhaps I shall always
care. Oh, it is cruel to come so near happiness and miss it. But it is
something to have come near it.

"O God, help me--" she prayed, "not to choose the desert way. I do not
want to be bitter and hard."

As she lay back in her chair, too weary to think; through her mind floated
Rosalind's words, "Things always come right in the Forest."

* * * * *

It was after dinner. The sun had set, leaving the sky full of opal tints.
The delicate leaves of the white birch barely moved, so still was the air.
The whir of the last locust had died away, and the soft splash of the
fountain was the only sound, as Rosalind in her white dress flitted past
the griffins and joined her uncle on the garden bench. He welcomed her
with a smile, and smoked on in silence. They were too good comrades to
need to talk.

After a while Rosalind spoke: "Uncle Allan, do you know Miss Celia Fair?"

"I used to."

Silence again.

"I like her very much. I think she is sweet, and she bears hard things
bravely. Belle says, since her father died they haven't any money, so Miss
Celia works, and the boys are troublesome, and her mother is ill a great
deal."

Another silence.

"Uncle Allan, was it any harm for me to know her? Belle said there was a
quarrel, and Aunt Genevieve said, 'We have nothing to do with the Fairs.'"

As he flicked the ash from his cigar, Allan smiled at Rosalind's
unconscious imitation of Genevieve's tone.

"I see no reason why you should take up other people's quarrels," he said
gravely.

Then Rosalind told him of her first meeting with Celia, and the incident
of the rose. "But I think now I must have been mistaken," she added.

"Perhaps," said Allan, and again he smiled to himself in the twilight, so
vividly did the story recall the occasiona