He looked so fierce that everybody laughed—­somewhat tremulously.  There could be no doubt that he meant all he said.  Celia’s cheeks were pink with excitement; Mrs. Birch’s were of a similar hue, in sympathy with her daughter’s joy.

“I tell you, that girl Charlotte,” began the captain again, “deserves all anybody can do for her.  She has developed three years in one.  Fond as I’ve always been of her, I hadn’t the least idea what was in the child.  She’s going to make a woman of a rare sort.  Look here!” A new idea flashed into his mind.

He considered it for the space of a half-minute, then brought it forth: 

“Let me take her, too.  Not for the year—­don’t look as if I’d hit you, Helen—­just till October.  I mean to sail in ten days, you know.  I’ve engaged plenty of room.  There’ll be no trouble about a berth——­”

“O Uncle Ray!” Celia interrupted him.  There could be no question about her unselfish soul.  If she had been happy before, she was rapturous now.

“Three months will give her quite a journey,” the captain hurried on, leaving nobody any time for objections.  “I’ll see that she gets art enough out of it to fill her to the brim with inspiration.  And there will surely be somebody she can come back with.  May I have her?”

“What shall we do with you?” his sister said, softly.  “I can’t deny you—­or her.  If her father agrees——­”

“If I didn’t know your big heart so well, Jack,” said Roderick Birch, slowly, “I should be too proud to accept so much, even from my wife’s brother.  But I believe it would be unworthy of me—­or of you—­to let false pride stand in my girls’ way.”

From the distance two figures were approaching, one in blue linen, the other in white flannel—­Charlotte and Doctor Churchill.

They were talking gaily, laughing like a pair of very happy children, and carrying between them a great bunch of daisies and buttercups that would have hid a church pulpit from view.

“Let’s tell her now,” proposed Celia.  “I can’t wait to have her know.”

“Go ahead,” agreed her uncle.  “And let the doctor hear it, too.  If he isn’t a brother of the family, it’s because the family doesn’t know one of the finest fellows on the face of the earth when it sees him.”

“You’re a most discerning chap, Jack Rayburn,” said his brother-in-law, heartily, “but there are other people with discernment.  I have liked young Churchill from the moment I saw him first.  All that Forester says of him confirms my opinion.”

“How excited you people all look!” called Charlotte, merrily, as she drew near.  “Tell us why.”

Captain Rayburn nodded to Celia.  She shook her head vigorously in return.  He glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Birch, both of whom smilingly refused to speak.  So he looked up at Charlotte, and put his question as he might have fired a shot.

“Will you sail for Europe with Celia and me week after next, to stay till October?  Celia will stay the year with me; you I shall ship home as useless baggage in the fall.”