at it was
good to eat. So I ate mine--manfully, I assure you. But it was a bitter
dose."

"Poor little girl! She tries so hard, Lanse. And the gingerbread was
very good."

"So it was. It helped take out the taste of the pudding. Did you
honestly eat that pudding?"

"See here." Celia beckoned him close. She reached a cautious hand under
her pillow and drew out her soap-dish. "Please get rid of it for me,"
she whispered, "and wash the dish. I couldn't bear not to seem to eat
it, so I slipped it in there."

Striving to smother his mirth, Lanse bore the soap-dish away. Returning
with it, he carefully replaced the soap and set the dish on the stand,
where it had been within Celia's reach. "I wish I had had a soap-dish at
the table," he remarked, "but the cook's eye was upon me, and I had to
stand up to it. But see here. I've a letter for you--from Uncle
Rayburn."

Celia stretched an eager hand, for a letter from Uncle John
Rayburn--middle-aged, a bachelor, and an ex-army officer, retired by an
incurable injury which did not make him the less the best uncle in the
world--could not fail to be welcome. But she had not read a page before
she dropped the sheet and stared helplessly and anxiously at Lanse.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Why, Uncle Rayburn writes that he would like to come to spend the
winter with us," answered Celia.

"What luck!"

"Luck--with Charlotte in the kitchen?"

"Uncle Ray is a crack-a-jack of a cook himself. His board bill will help
out like oil on a dry axle, and if we don't have a lot of fun, then
Uncle Ray has changed as--I know he hasn't."

* * * * *

CHAPTER V

"Two cripples," declared Capt. John Rayburn--honourably discharged from
active service in the United States Army on account of permanent
disability from injuries received in the Philippines,--"two cripples
should be able to keep a household properly stirred up. I've been here
five days now, and my soul longs for some frivolity."

He leaned back in his big wicker armchair and looked quizzically across
at his niece Celia, who lay upon her couch at the other side of the
room. She gave him a somewhat pale-faced smile in return. Four weeks of
enforced quiet were beginning to tell on her.

"Some frivolity," repeated Captain Rayburn, as Charlotte came to the
door of the room. "What do you say, Charlie girl? Shall we have some
fun?"

"Dear me, yes, Uncle Ray," Charlotte responded, promptly, "if