ts since Rosemary went away. I know Mother
would be pleased to see you."

"We'd just love it! You bet we'll come!"

Lorraine, pouring out the account of her adventures when she reached
home, sought confirmation from her mother for the invitation she had
given to the young Castletons.

"They're the _most_ fascinating family! I saw them all as Claudia was
taking me back through the garden. I think each one's more perfectly
beautiful than the others. They're absolutely romantic. You _will_ let
me ask Morland and Claudia to tea, won't you, Muvvie?"

"I will in this case, because I know something of Mr. Castleton from the
Lorrimers, but you mustn't go giving broadcast invitations again without
consulting me first."

"I won't! I won't! You're a darling to let me have them. Muvvie, I'm so
thankful you're not our stepmother!"

"So am I," returned Mrs. Forrester humorously. "I find my own family
quite a sufficient handful, and what I should have done with another
woman's in addition, I don't know. It would have been quite too big a
burden."

"We can play the piano here," said Lorraine, "because there isn't any
baby to wake up and cry."

"If there were, you'd have to reckon with me, for I shouldn't let it be
disturbed when I'd successfully hushed it to sleep. I haven't forgotten
my own struggles with you and Richard. You were the naughtiest babies of
the whole tribe."

After this rather unconventional introduction, Lorraine's attraction to
the Castletons ripened fast into intimate friendship. They were such an
unusual family, so clever and interesting, yet with Bohemian ways that
were different from those of any one she had yet known.

In the case of Morland and Claudia their father's artistic talent had
cropped out in the form of music. Claudia cared nothing for painting,
but was just beginning to discover that she had a voice. Morland,
hopeless as far as school work was concerned, had learned to play the
piano almost by instinct. He was a handsome, careless, good-tempered
boy, decidedly weak in character, who drifted aimlessly along without
even an ambition in life. He was seventeen and a half, and for nearly a
year had been lounging about at home, doing nothing in particular.
Spasmodically his father would realize his existence and say: "I must
really do something with Morland." Then he would get absorbed in a fresh
picture, and his good intentions on his son's behalf would fade to
vanishing point. In another six