"You see, I had an appointment with a man in West Weston on some work I've been doing for him. After I heard this plan of Doctor Forester's I had only just time to catch a train and get out there. He kept me so long I missed the train that would have brought me back in time to see you off, so I telephoned Chester Agnew to get the flowers for me and write a card. That was when I was afraid I might not make connections at all. But when this man I went to see--he's a railroad man--heard what train I'd wanted to make, he offered to stop it for me. Then it just came into my mind that I'd join the party, even without an invitation. Tell me you're not sorry--won't you?" "Of course I'm not." She allowed him one of her frank looks, and he smiled back at her. "We'll have a great day to-morrow," he prophesied. "They'll put on a Pullman with an observation rear in the morning, and if the weather holds we'll camp out there for the day. We don't get into Washington till three in the afternoon, and the scenery all the way down will be fine. I suppose I'll have to go off now and let you be tucked up. Please get up bright and early in the morning, will you?" It was a merry party which entered the dining-car the next morning the moment the first summons came. The day had risen bright and clear as a June day could be, and everybody was in a hurry to get out on the observation platform. Doctor Forester, sitting opposite Charlotte and Andy at one table, glanced across at the rest of the party, on the opposite side of the car, and said in a low voice: "This is literally a case of speeding the parting guest, isn't it? Captain John Rayburn got you into something of a scrape when he sent you that copper inscription over your fireplace, didn't he? He didn't realise that the 'ornaments' it brought you in November would have to be conveyed away by force in June. It was the only way to give you an interval when you should, for the first time in the history of your married life, have no guests at all." Charlotte and Andrew were staring at him in amazement. "Uncle Ray?" cried Charlotte, under her breath. "Was he the one? Did you know it all the time, Doctor Forester?" "Yes, I knew it all the time" he owned. "In fact, Captain Rayburn wrote to me after he had heard of the fireplace. You sent him a photograph of it, didn't you?" "So we did," Doctor Churchill answered. "We took it the day the fireplace was finished, I'd forgotten it completely, but I remember now. We thought he'd be interested, because something he once said about the ideal fireplace had put the idea into our heads of collecting the stones ourselves. So he wrote all the way from Denmark to have that made?" "He had it made there, and wrote me for the measurements. He expressed it to me, and I repacked it and sent it to you," chuckled Doctor Forester. "He was determined to puzzle you completely." "He certainly succeeded. Did he give you leave to tell at this particular date?"