wailed Monica the
spoilt.

"It's too far. Look here, I'll ask Mother to let you have some of the
Castleton children to tea one day. Would that content you?"

"Ye--es!" conceded Monica doubtfully. "But it doesn't make up for this
morning. I think you're _ever_ so mean, Lorraine!"

"Poor old Cuckoo! But you know you couldn't really have come in any
case, for you're to be at the dentist's by eleven."

"Strafe the old dentist! I wish he were at the bottom of the sea!"
declared the youngest of the Forrester family, with temper.

Lorraine ran away at last, and pelted up the hill to the Castletons'
house, meeting Morland, Claudia, and Landry in the lane, whither they
had fled to avoid a contingent of younger ones. They were laden with a
cargo of miscellaneous articles--a kettle, a pan, some plates, and
various tins.

"It's like a young removal," said Claudia.

"Or emigrating to the wilds of Canada," laughed Lorraine. "I've brought
an enamelled mug, because it doesn't break like a teacup, and a little
old Britannia metal teapot that I prigged from the attic. It was only
going to be sent to a rummage sale, so we may just as well have it."

"Do mermaids drink tea, please?"

"No doubt they do when they can get it. Perhaps the smugglers taught
them how."

Morland had intended to give the girls a surprise, and when they
entered the grotto their amazement quite came up to his expectations.
The cave seemed truly transformed into a sea-nymphs' palace. Landry had
worked untiringly all the week picking up shells, and these were
arranged in patterns, with long pieces of sea-weed draped artistically
here and there. Fragments of wreckage had been neatly sawn and nailed
together to form a cupboard, a table, and some seats, and just inside
the entrance, in white pebbles, was the word "Welcome".

Landry, in his own way as pleased as his brother, stood beaming.
Morland, though inwardly proud, affected nonchalance.

"Couldn't make it look much, of course," he apologized.

"Much? Why, it's topping!"

"It's like a fairy-tale! However did you find time to do all this?"

"Oh! I just worked a bit," murmured Morland modestly.

The first picnic in the grotto was a huge success. To be sure the table
was unsteady, and had a decided lop to one end, and the benches felt
slightly insecure, but the girls said that added an element of
adventure, for you never knew when you might be suddenly precipitated on
to the floor. They put the cocoa,