spect.

"This is the sort of thing I prefer," Doctor Forester announced, with
satisfaction. "I wouldn't give a picayune to own one of those castles,
back there. But down here I'm going to show you my ideal of comfort."

Fred turned in at a gateway and drove on through orchards and grove to a
house behind the trees on the river bank.

"Doesn't that look like home?" exclaimed the doctor, as they alighted.
"Well, it is home! I bought it yesterday, just as it stands. Nothing
fine about it, outside or in. I wanted it to run away to when I'm tired.
I'm not going to tell anybody about it except---"

"Except every one he meets," Fred said, gaily, to Celia, leading her
toward the wide porch overlooking the river, about which the May vines
were beginning to cluster profusely. "He can't keep it a secret. I may
as well warn you he's going to invite you and the whole family out here
for a fortnight in June. So if you don't want to come you have a chance
to be thinking up a reasonable excuse."

"As if we could want one! What a charming plan for us! Does he really
mean to include all of us?"

"Every one, under both roofs. I assure you it's a jolly plan for us, and
I'm holding my breath till I know you'll come."

"What a lovely rest it will be for Charlotte!" murmured Celia, thinking
at once, as usual, of somebody else. "She won't own it, but she's really
had a pretty hard winter."

"So I should imagine, for the first year of one's married life. I'm
afraid I couldn't be as hospitable as she and her husband--not all at
once, you know. Do you think it's paid?"

"What? Having the three through the winter?" Celia glanced at Evelyn,
who at the other end of the long porch with Doctor Forester was gazing
with happy eyes out over the sunlit river. "Oh, I'm sure Charlotte and
Andy would both say so. In Evelyn's case I think there's no doubt about
it. From being a delicate little invalid she's come to be the healthy
girl you see there. Not very vigorous yet, of course, but in a fair way
to become so, Andy thinks."

"Yes, I can see," admitted Forester, thoughtfully. "But those other
youngsters--"

Celia laughed. It was easy to think well of everybody out here in this
delicious air and in the company of people she thoroughly liked. Even
Lucy Peyton seemed less of an infliction.

"Little Ran has certainly improved very much," she said, warmly. "And
even Lucy--"

"Has Lucy improved?" Forester looked at her with a quizzical smile. "Th