know when
I've been so enlivened. I hardly know which of the two has afforded me
more downright amusement, each in her way. But Celia, I tell you,
Roderick and Helen, has been one brave girl, and that's all there is of
it."

"You'll find no dissenting voice here," Celia's father declared, and her
mother added:

"Nobody who knows her could expect her to be anything else."

Celia looked away, her cheeks flushing.

"So now I want her to have her reward," said Captain Rayburn. "Let me
take her with me for the year abroad."

Celia started, glancing quickly from her father to her mother, neither
of whom looked so surprised as she would have expected. Both returned
her gaze thoughtfully.

"How about the going to college?" Mr. Birch questioned. "I thought that
was the great ambition."

"She shall have a four year's course in one if she comes with me. I
shall spend much time in the libraries and art collections. My friends
in several cities are people it is worth a long journey to meet.
Undoubtedly such a year would be valuable at the end of a college
course, and it may appear to you that the studies within the scholastic
walls in this country had better come first. The point is that I am
going now. I may not be, at the moment Celia takes her diploma. And the
question of her health seems to me also one to be considered. Months of
enforced quiet haven't been any too good for her."

"There's not much need to ask Celia what she would like," Mr. Birch
observed.

The girl studied his face anxiously. "But could you spare me?" she
asked. "If it means that mother would have to take my place again----"

"It won't mean that," said Captain Rayburn, stoutly. "My plans cover two
maids in the Birch household, the most capable to be obtained."

"See here Jack," said Mr. Roderick Birch, quickly, "you can't play good
fairy for the whole family--and it's not necessary. As soon as I am at
work in the office again this close figuring will be over."

"I want my niece Charlotte to go to her school of design," the captain
went on, imperturbably.

"We mean that she shall."

"I wish you people would let me alone!" he cried. "Here I am, your only
brother, without a chick or a child of my own. Am I to be denied what is
the greatest delight I can have? By a lucky accident my money was safe
in the panic that swept away yours. Pure luck or providence, or whatever
you choose to call it--certainly not because my business sagacity was
any gre