npractical and irrational,
delightful to talk to, but exasperating in the extreme to those with
whom he had business. The quaint, old-fashioned homestead on the hill,
with its low-ceiled bedrooms, panelled parlours, black-beamed kitchen,
ivied porch, thick hedge of fuchsias, and view over a stretch of heath
and the dancing waters of the bay, satisfied his artistic temperament,
and provided a suitable background for the new ideas which he was
constantly evolving. Moreover--though this was quite a secondary
consideration--it afforded sufficient accommodation for his family.

Lorraine's first impression of the Castletons was that they went in for
both quality and quantity. They numbered nine, and all had the same
nicely-shaped noses, Cupid mouths, irreproachable complexions, neat
teeth, dark-fringed blue eyes, and shining sunlit hair. They were a
veritable gold-mine to artists, and their portraits had been painted
constantly by their father and his friends. Pictures of them in various
costumes and poses had appeared as coloured supplements to annuals or as
frontispieces in magazines; they had figured in the Academy, and had
been bought for permanent collections in local art galleries. The
features of Morland, Claudia, Landry, Beata, Romola, and Madox had for
years been familiar to frequenters of provincial exhibitions, sometimes
singly, sometimes in groups, and sometimes with the lovely mother, whose
profile was considered a near approach to that of the classic statue of
Ceres.

Five years before this story opens, pretty, impetuous, blue-eyed Mrs.
Castleton had suddenly resigned all the sad and glad things that make up
the puzzle we call life, and passed on to sample the ways of a wider
world. For the first six months her husband had mourned for her
distractedly, and had written quite a little volume of poems in her
memory; for the next eight months he was attractively pensive, and
then--all in a few weeks--he fell in love again and married his model, a
girl of barely seventeen, with a beautiful Burne-Jones face and a
Cockney accent. In the following few years three more carnation-cheeked,
golden-haired little Castletons--Constable, Lilith, and Perugia--had
tumbled into this planet to form a second nursery, and were already
learning to sit for their portraits in various attractive studio poses.

Claudia, running into the house to fetch an extra basket for the
horse-chestnuts, introduced Lorraine to a few members of the f