Corin replied that he would gladly have helped them if he could, but his fortune was very humble; he was only shepherd to another man, and did not own the flocks he looked after. His master was very churlish and inhospitable, and, besides, at this moment his cottage and flocks were on sale, so there was no food at home that he could offer them. However, if they liked to come and rest in the cottage, they were heartily welcome. Rosalind asked who was going to buy the flock and pasture. Corin replied that it was the young swain who had just left him, and who cared nothing at all about the matter. “I pray you, if you can do so honestly, buy the cottage, pasture, and flock,” said Rosalind, “and we will give you the money to pay for them.” “And we will increase your wages,” added Celia. “I like this place, and would willingly spend some time here.” So Celia and Rosalind, still attended by Touchstone, took up their abode in the shepherd’s cottage; and that was how the cynical lord Jaques happened to meet the fool in the forest. The Shepherd Youth Orlando, in his new life, did not forget the lady whom he had seen at the wrestling match, and who had so quickly won his heart. As he had no chance of speaking to Rosalind, the only way in which he could show his love was to carve her name on all the trees, and perpetually to write verses in her praise, which he hung all over the forest. “Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love,” he would say. “O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books, and I will trace my thoughts in their bark, so that every eye which looks in this forest shall see your praise everywhere.” [Illustration: “Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love.”] Rosalind came across some of these papers, and wondered greatly who the person could be who thus carved and hung her name on all the trees; but Celia, who had also found some of the verses, was able to enlighten her, for she had happened to see the writer. On hearing that it was really Orlando, Rosalind became quite excited, and Celia had no time to answer half the eager questions showered on her before Orlando himself came that way. Rosalind now for the first time rather regretted her boy’s dress, for, of course, Orlando did not recognise the cousins in their present attire. But, at any rate, in the guise of a saucy youth she determined to have a little fun, and presently a whimsical idea occurred to her nimble brain. Seeing how disconsolate Orlando was, she suggested to him that she should _pretend_ to be really his Rosalind, and that he should address all his affectionate speeches and verses to her exactly in the same way as he would have done to the real person. If he did this, she said, she would soon cure him of his love. [Illustration: Audrey, the goatherd.]