Dorothea hesitated.  “Mother wouldn’t like them, but—­” She jumped up and clapped her hands in excited delight.  “Mother’s got a headache and isn’t coming down to-night, and if you will stay I think she will let me take dinner with you.  I hate foolishness about clothes, and these are the becomingest ones you wear; and, besides, at the Hunt Club you eat in them, and why can’t you do it here just once?  Wouldn’t it be magnificent if I could sit up?” Dorothea whirled round and round.  “Father is out of town, and Channing has a tiny bit of cold and can’t leave his room, and I’m so lonesome.  Oh, please, Uncle Winthrop, please stay!”

“Ask Miss Keith if I can stay.  She may have other engagements.”

“Have you?” Dorothea was on her knees by Claudia, hands on her shoulders.  “And may he stay?  You won’t have to change your clothes, either.  You look precious in those riding things, and, when you take the coat off, anybody who didn’t know would think you were a little girl, the skirt is so short and skimpy; and your hair with a bow in the back looks like me.  Can’t he stay, Cousin Claudia?”

“If he wants to, of course.  I’m sorry your mother is sick.  She didn’t tell me at lunch.”

“It’s just a headache, and as father is away and there was nothing to go to, I think she thought she’d take a rest and read something.  Are you going out to-night?”

Claudia got up.  “No, I’m not going out; but I have a letter to write.  Will you stay to dinner, Mr. Laine?”

“I will.  Thank you very much, Miss Warrick.  The invitation was forced from Miss Keith, but I accept it notwithstanding.”  Laine, who had risen, put his hand on Dorothea’s shoulder.  “I think we will have a very nice dinner-party.”

“I’ll chaperone it!” Dorothea rose to full height and balanced herself on her toes.  “Miss Robin French said she couldn’t go on some trip the other day because there was no chaperone; and if a lady with a mole on her chin and nearly forty has to have a chaperone, I guess you all will.  Please don’t stay long, Cousin Claudia.  If you don’t want to see mother, Uncle Winthrop, I’ll talk to you, for after dinner I will have to go right straight to bed, being a brought-up-on-a-book child, and then you and Cousin Claudia will be all by yourselves.  Maybe if you asked mother, though, she might let me sit up just this once.  Shall I go and tell her you say so?”

Laine held the curtains for Claudia to pass out.  “We wouldn’t be so cruel as to keep her up, would we?” he asked, and smiled in the eyes turned quickly from his.  “You will not be gone long, and you won’t change your dress?”

“I will be back in time for dinner—­and I won’t change my dress.  Tell Dorothea about the birds we saw this afternoon.”

During the hour that passed before Claudia came back Dorothea had a chance that seldom came for uninterrupted conversation, and that her uncle said little was not noticed for some time.  Presently she looked up,