o the Forest and all who have learned its secret," she
proposed.

In the midst of it all, Miss Betty walked in.

"Well!" she exclaimed, "I think you might have asked me."

"It isn't too late. This is an impromptu affair in honor of Patterson,"
said Allan, offering her a chair.

"You have no idea what a noise you are making," she said, greeting the
stranger. "I had just come in from a guild meeting, and the unusual
illumination and the sounds of hilarity were too much for my curiosity."
Here her glance rested in evident surprise upon Celia.

"Celia has something to show you, Cousin Betty," Allan said mercilessly,
"and you are not to bother me about it any more."

Miss Betty went around to Celia and kissed her. "It is what I have been
hoping all along," she whispered.

CHAPTER THIRTIETH.

OAK LEAVES.

"Bid me farewell."

"I have something to tell you," said Belle, as the Arden Foresters walked
up the hill toward the Gilpin place.

"So have I," added Rosalind, "something lovely," and she waved a small
package aloft.

"Is it something for us?" Katherine asked.

"Let Belle tell hers first. Mine must wait till we get to the oak tree."

"It is about the ring. I have found out how it came to be in the spinet,"
Belle announced.

"Really? How?"

"Lucy Brown, Aunt Milly's granddaughter, put it there," she began, all
eagerness to tell her news. "Aunt Milly, you know, was Mr. Gilpin's cook,
and Lucy had come in from the country to stay with her a few days, when he
was taken ill. The morning he died she found the case with the ring in it
under the library table, and she carried it into the drawing-room, where
she was dusting, meaning to show it to her grandmother. Just as she had
opened the spinet some one called to her to run for Dr. Fair, that Mr.
Gilpin was dying, and in a great hurry she pushed the ring case under the
strings and closed the lid and forgot all about it. She went home before
anybody knew the ring was lost, and never thought of it again till she
came to Friendship the other day and our Manda was telling her about the
magician's finding it."

"I am almost sorry we know how it happened," said Rosalind. "I liked to
think the magician had really broken the spell."

It was the last meeting of the Arden Foresters before Rosalind's
departure, and in spite of the wintry day they decided it must be held
under the oak tree; and little cared they for the weather as they rustled
through the falle