you can
think how!"

"I can. Is there a birthday or anything that we may celebrate? I've no
compunction about getting up festivities on any pretext, but if there
happened to be a birthday handy--"

"November--yes. Why, we had forgotten all about it! Lanse's birthday is
the fourth. That's--"

"Day after to-morrow. Good! Can you make him a birthday-cake? If not,
I--"

"Oh, yes, I can!" cried Charlotte, eagerly. "I've just learned an
orange-cake."

"All right. Then we'll order a few little things from town, and have a
jollification. Not a very big one, on account of the lady on the couch
there, who reminds me at the moment of a water-lily whom some one has
picked and then left on the stern seat in the sun. She looks very sweet,
but a trifle limp."

Celia's smile was several degrees brighter than the previous one had
been. Nobody could resist Uncle Ray when he began to exert himself to
cheer people up.

He was a young, or an old, bachelor, according to one's point of view,
being not yet forty, and looking, in spite of the past suffering which
had brought into his chestnut hair two patches of gray at the temples,
very much like a bright-faced boy with an irrepressible spirit of energy
and interest in the life about him. It could hardly be doubted that
Capt. John Rayburn, apparently invalided for life and cut off from the
activity which had been his dearest delight, must have his hours of
depression, but nobody had ever caught him in one of them.

"I should like some music at this festival," Captain Rayburn went on.
"Is the orchestra out of practice?"

"We haven't played for six weeks," Charlotte said. "And Celia's first
violin--"

"You couldn't play, bolstered up?"

Celia shook her head. "I should be tired in ten minutes."

"I'm not so sure of that, but we'll see. Anyhow, I've the old flute
here--"

"Oh, fine!" cried Charlotte.

"Suppose we ask Doctor Forester out, and your young doctor here next
door, and two or three of your girl friends, and a boy and girl or two
for Jeff and Just."

"What a funny mixture, Uncle Ray! Doctor Forester and Norman Carter,
Just's chum, and Carolyn Houghton?"

"Funny, is it?" inquired Captain Rayburn, undisturbed. "Now do you know,
that's my ideal of a well-planned company, particularly when all the
family are to be here. Invite somebody for each one, mix 'em all up,
play some jolly games, and you'll find Doctor Forester vying with Norman
Carter for the prize, and enjoy