"Why, Uncle Rayburn writes that he would like to come to spend the winter with us," answered Celia.
"What luck!"
"Luck--with Charlotte in the kitchen?"
"Uncle Ray is a crack-a-jack of a cook himself. His board bill will help out like oil on a dry axle, and if we don't have a lot of fun, then Uncle Ray has changed as--I know he hasn't."
CHAPTER V
"Two cripples," declared Capt. John Rayburn--honourably discharged from active service in the United States Army on account of permanent disability from injuries received in the Philippines,--"two cripples should be able to keep a household properly stirred up. I've been here five days now, and my soul longs for some frivolity."
He leaned back in his big wicker armchair and looked quizzically across at his niece Celia, who lay upon her couch at the other side of the room. She gave him a somewhat pale-faced smile in return. Four weeks of enforced quiet were beginning to tell on her.
"Some frivolity," repeated Captain Rayburn, as Charlotte came to the door of the room. "What do you say, Charlie girl? Shall we have some fun?"
"Dear me, yes, Uncle Ray," Charlotte responded, promptly, "if you can think how!"