Rosalind thought of all this, her eyes on the dismantled garden. The
flower beds were bare, the shrubs done up in straw, the fountain dry, and
yet something recalled the summer day when she had sat just here learning
her hymn. She remembered her old dreams of Friendship, and now she decided
that the reality was best. She shut her eyes and tried to think just how
she had felt that Sunday afternoon.

"What is the matter, little girl?" The magician's words, but not his
voice; nor was it his face she looked into.

"Father!" she cried,--"you dear! Where did you come from?"

It was some time before any connected conversation was possible.

"Why, father, how brown you are!"

"And Rosalind, how tall you are, and how rosy! To think I have lost six
months of your life!"

"And I want to tell you everything just in one minute. What shall I do?"
Rosalind said, laughing, as she held him fast.

It did indeed seem a task of alarming proportions to tell all there was to
tell; Rosalind felt a little impatient at having to share her father with
her grandmother that evening. And there was almost as much to hear,--of
Cousin Louis, whose health was now restored, but who was to spend some
months in England, of their adventures, and the sights they had seen.

"We shall want something to talk about when we get home," she was
reminded.

It would have been plain to the least observant that Patterson
Whittredge's life was bound up with that of this little daughter. As he
talked to his mother, his eyes rested fondly on Rosalind, and every
subject led back to her at last.

Rosalind, looking from her father to her grandmother, noted how much alike
were their dark eyes, but here the resemblance ended. Mrs. Whittredge's
oldest son, although he might possess something of her strong will, had
nothing of her haughty reserve. His manner, in spite of the preoccupation
of the student, was one of winning cordiality. Older and graver than
Allan, there was yet a strong likeness between the brothers.

Rosalind could not rest until she had taken her father to all the historic
spots, as she merrily called them,--Red Hill, the Gilpin place, the
cemetery, and the magician's shop, of course.

"Friendship has been good for you, little girl," he said, as they set out
far a walk next day.

"I used to think that stories were better than real things, father, but it
isn't so in Friendship. At first I was--oh, so lonely; I thought I never
could be the lea