Musical Mavis attached
herself to Claudia with a great admiration, and Merle found a devoted
knight in ten-year-old Madox, who clung to her with the persistency of a
chestnut burr, chiefly because she had the charity to answer his
perpetual questions. "The interrogation mark," as he was called by his
own family, was a typical Castleton, and most cherubic of countenance,
though his curls had been sheared in deference to school, spoiling him,
so his father declared, for artistic purposes. He was a mixture of
mischief and romance, and Merle, who accepted his temporary allegiance,
never quite knew whether his embraces were marks of genuine affection or
were designed for the chance of dropping pebbles down her back.
Some delightful friends of the Castletons were also spending a holiday in
rooms at Chagmouth--Miss Lindsay, an artist, and Lorraine Forrester, a
chum of Claudia's, both of whom were sketching the quaint streets and the
quay and the harbour with the wildest enthusiasm. Morland had also taken
a sudden fancy for painting, and insisted upon going out with them daily,
producing some quite pretty little impressionistic pictures, with a touch
of his father's style about them.
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