ER THE GREENWOOD TREE.

"Must you then be proud and pitiless?"

The book containing the constitution of the Arden Foresters lay on the
garden bench. The Foresters themselves were spending the afternoon at the
creek at the foot of Red Hill. All was quiet in the neighborhood. The bank
doors had closed two hours ago, and Friendship seemed to have retired for
its afternoon nap.

Allan Whittredge unfolded the _County News_ and glanced over it, then laid
it on his knee and gazed across the lawn with a thoughtful frown. The
_County News_ presented no problems, but life in this quiet village of
Friendship did. His talk with Miss Betty had brought him face to face with
them. He was conscious now that his attitude had been one of complacent
superiority. He had held himself above the pettiness of village life only
to discover, as he admitted frankly, that he had been a conceited fool.

His own indignation helped him to realize something of what Celia must
have felt at the cruel affront to her father. And his silence all this
while made him seem a party to it. It was an intolerable thought, but
Allan was not one to brood over difficulties; a gleam of what Miss Betty
called the Barnwell stubbornness shone in his eyes as he made an inward
vow to find some way to convince Celia of his ignorance of much which had
happened at the time of his father's death, and to gain from his mother an
admission of her mistake. The question how to accomplish this, filled him
with a helpless impatience.

He took up the book that lay beside him and opened it. "The secret of the
Forest: Good in everything," he read. "To remember the secret of the
Forest, to bear hard things bravely--" He turned the leaves and saw under
Morgan's straggling characters the once familiar writing of Celia
Fair,--the firm, delicate backhand, so suggestive, to one who knew her, of
the determination that lay beneath her gentleness. Did Celia believe there
was good in everything? Surely not in all this trouble. Yet she was
bearing hard things bravely, if all he heard were true. It hurt him to
think of her carrying a load of responsibility and care. His own life
seemed tame from its very lack of care.

He closed the book with decision. His task was to unravel these twisted
threads of hatred and misunderstanding, and he would do it.

Meanwhile, he found time for other things. He began to cultivate the
society of the Arden Foresters, and to be a boy again in earnest.

Boat