Mr. Pat's Little Girl Part 16

"What does it mean?" Rosalind asked.

"I think it is something political."

"Then we don't want it."

However, as there was a dictionary in the room, it was thought best to consult it.

"Here it is, 'mutual giving and returning,'" Maurice announced, when he found the place.

"'Giving and returning,'" Rosalind repeated; "Maurice, look for 'mutual.'"

"It means almost the same thing,' something reciprocal, in common,'" he said presently.

"Then it means to do things for each other. I like that. Why couldn't we put that in Article II? It means 'helping.'"

"How about qualifications, then?" asked Maurice.

"I don't think I'd have any. We'll only ask the people we want."

So reciprocity was added to Article II. As he wrote, Maurice laughed.

"I'll bet they won't any of them know what it means," he said.

"Then Article IV will be the watchword, 'The Forest,'" added Rosalind.

"And, Maurice, don't you think it would be nice to choose a leaf for a badge? But perhaps we'd better decide that at the next meeting. Don't you think it is going to be fun?"

Maurice agreed that it was, feeling sure Jack and Belle and Katherine must be impressed with the result of their afternoon's work. He had a new blank-book ready for the const.i.tution, and on the first page he had already written: "The Arden Foresters--Secret Society," and at Rosalind's suggestion he now added the motto, "Good in everything."

They surveyed it with pride, and Rosalind said, "I am just crazy to show it to somebody. Where is Katherine?"

But Maurice thought it wouldn't be fair to the others to show it to her first.

The rain continued to patter against the window. Rosalind sat with her elbows on the table, and her chin in her hands, watching Maurice as he folded the sheet of legal-cap paper on which the const.i.tution was written, and placed it in the book.

"Maurice," she said suddenly, lifting her eyes to the benevolent face of the bank president, "do you know Miss Celia Fair?"

"Miss Celia? Why, of course I do."

"Everybody seems to know everybody in Friends.h.i.+p. It's funny," Rosalind commented thoughtfully. "Then you can tell me just what sort of a person she is."

"She is tip-top; I like Miss Celia," Maurice replied, with emphasis.

"Do you think she is kind?"

"Yes, indeed. The day I felt so badly about not going fis.h.i.+ng,--the day you spoke to me through the hedge,--she came in and sat on the step and tried to cheer me up. Oh, yes, Miss Celia is kind."

"But do you think she would be kind to some one she didn't know?" Rosalind persisted.

Maurice looked at her in surprise, she seemed so much in earnest in these inquiries. "How can you be kind to people you don't know?" he asked.

"I'll tell you about it if you won't tell. You see I am not quite sure."

Then Rosalind told the incident of her meeting with Miss Fair in the cemetery. "She looked pleasant and as if she wanted to be friends at first, but she didn't say anything after I told her my name, and when I looked back, I am sure--almost sure--saw her throw the rose away."

"Miss Celia wouldn't do a thing like that," Maurice a.s.serted stoutly. "She couldn't have any reason for it; she doesn't know you."

"Do you really think she wouldn't?" Rosalind asked, in a tone of relief.

"You know there is a kind of a quarrel between her family and ours,--Belle said so,--and I thought perhaps that had something to do with it; but I am going to try to think I was mistaken about the rose."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LOOKING UP HE DISCOVERED HIS VISITORS."]

While they talked the rain had ceased, and some rays of watery suns.h.i.+ne found their way in at the window.

"Let's go to the magician's and show him the const.i.tution and ask him to join," Rosalind proposed.

Maurice was willing, and without a thought of the clouds they started gayly up the street. They were almost there when Rosalind said, "I believe it is going to rain, and we haven't an umbrella."

"Perhaps we shall have to stay to supper with Morgan," Maurice suggested, laughing.

"I had a very good supper there," said Rosalind. "I don't see why everybody should think it was so very funny in me to go."

"No one else would have done it, that's all."

When they looked in at the door of the magician's shop, he was busy with some sc.r.a.ps of leather. Around him were bottomless chairs, topless tables, and melancholy sofas with sagging springs exposed to view, and in one corner a tall, empty clock-case. With his spectacles on the tip of his nose and a pair of large shears in his hand, Morgan might have sat for the picture of some wonder-working genius. Looking up, he discovered his visitors, and a smile illumined his rugged face, as he waved them a welcome with the big shears. He was never too busy for company.

"Come in, come in," he said; and jumping up he got out a feather duster and whisked off a chair for Rosalind, remarking that dust didn't hurt boys.

Rosalind laid the book on the table among the sc.r.a.ps of leather, open at the page where Maurice had written the name of the society and the motto.

Pointing to it, they explained that they wished him to join.

Adjusting his spectacles, the magician carefully read the const.i.tution.

"The Secret of the Forest? What's that?" he asked.

Rosalind pointed to the motto, whereupon he nodded approvingly, and went on. "Search for the ring--" he looked up questioningly; but when it was explained, he shook his head. "Stolen," he said.

Reciprocity seemed to amuse him greatly. He repeated it several times, glancing from one to the other of his visitors.

"Do you suppose he knows what it means?" Maurice asked Rosalind.

The magician's quick eyes understood the question. "Golden Rule?" he asked.

"Why, I did not think of that!" cried Rosalind.

"Morgan has a lot of sense," Maurice replied, with an air of proprietors.h.i.+p.

When he had read it all, the magician nodded approvingly. "I'll have to join because you have my motto," he said.

"Then we have six members to begin with," Rosalind remarked joyfully.