"As if we could want one! What a charming plan for us! Does he really mean to include all of us?"
"Every one, under both roofs. I assure you it's a jolly plan for us, and I'm holding my breath till I know you'll come."
"What a lovely rest it will be for Charlotte!" murmured Celia, thinking at once, as usual, of somebody else. "She won't own it, but she's really had a pretty hard winter."
"So I should imagine, for the first year of one's married life. I'm afraid I couldn't be as hospitable as she and her husband--not all at once, you know. Do you think it's paid?"
"What? Having the three through the winter?" Celia glanced at Evelyn, who at the other end of the long porch with Doctor Forester was gazing with happy eyes out over the sunlit river. "Oh, I'm sure Charlotte and Andy would both say so. In Evelyn's case I think there's no doubt about it. From being a delicate little invalid she's come to be the healthy girl you see there. Not very vigorous yet, of course, but in a fair way to become so, Andy thinks."
"Yes, I can see," admitted Forester, thoughtfully. "But those other youngsters--"
Celia laughed. It was easy to think well of everybody out here in this delicious air and in the company of people she thoroughly liked. Even Lucy Peyton seemed less of an infliction.
"Little Ran has certainly improved very much," she said, warmly. "And even Lucy--"
"Has Lucy improved?" Forester looked at her with a quizzical smile. "The last time I saw her I thought she was rather going backward. I met her by accident in town one day. Charlotte was shopping, and Lucy was waiting. She rushed up to me as to a long lost friend. She practically invited me to invite herself and Charlotte to lunch with me--she somewhat grudgingly included Charlotte. I was rather taken off my feet for an instant. Charlotte heard, and came up. I wish you could have seen the expression on the face of Mrs. Andrew Churchill! I don't know which felt the more crushed, Lucy or I. I assure you I was anxious to take them both to lunch after that, Mrs. Andrew had made it so clearly impossible."
"The perversity of human desires," laughed Celia. "Poor Lucy! Charlotte won't stand the child's absurd affectations."