de, with a
sharp bark of welcome, then back to call his master's attention.

"Why! Why!" exclaimed the magician, holding up a pair of rather grimy
hands.

There could be no doubt about his being glad to see Rosalind. He asked how
she was, over and over, and apologized for his hands, and smiled and
nodded and indulged in all sorts of absurd gestures, which made her laugh
so she couldn't try her new accomplishment of talking on her fingers.
Directly he hurried into the house, where she could hear him washing his
hands, and then he came out again with a teakettle, which he filled at the
cistern, and carrying it back set it on a small oil stove, which he
lighted.

"We'll have some tea," he said, sitting down beside her and asking again
how she was.

Rosalind summoned all her learning and spelled out carefully, with the aid
of some very dainty fingers, "I-am-lon--"

"Lonesome?" repeated the magician. "That is too bad. Mr. Pat wouldn't like
that."

Rosalind shook her head. The tears were near the surface, but she kept
them back, and remembering her book she laid it on the magician's knee,
open at the words Cousin Louis had written: "If we choose we may travel
always in the Forest where the birds sing and the sunlight sifts through
the trees; where although we sometimes grow footsore and hungry we know
that the goal is sure. Just outside is the dreary desert in which, alas!
many choose to walk, shutting their eyes to the beauty and peace of the
Forest, and losing by the way the sacred gift of happiness."

The magician read it slowly through, then he smiled at Rosalind over his
glasses. "That's so," he said. "It is hard to keep out of the desert
sometimes, but it all comes right in the end. Why, the other day I was--"
here he shook his head and put on a woe-begone expression of countenance
that made his meaning plain, and caused Rosalind to laugh--"and I looked
up and there you stood in the door and pointed to the motto, 'Good in
everything,' and I felt better."

"Did I really cheer you up?" cried Rosalind, delighted; and nodding quite
as if he heard, the magician answered, "Now I'll cheer you up." Rising, he
beckoned her to follow him inside, and she obeyed, feeling as if she were
somebody in a story.

The kettle was already singing merrily, and from a shelf the magician took
down a fat little teapot and, rinsing it with boiling water, proceeded to
make tea. Next he spread a white cloth on a small table, and from th