REGIE'S accident had happened late in June, and the weeks had worn slowly away with their dull monotony varied¹ by many a visit from loyal Nan and Harry². Now, it was the middle of August, and Regie was about again, only with an addition to the bodyguard³ in the shape of two sturdy little crutches⁴. It happened one evening about this time, when Regie had been stowed away for the night, that Mr. Fairfax was walking up and down in front of his cottage in a “brown study,” which means, you know, that he was thinking too hard about something in particular, to pay any attention to things in general. It seemed a pity he should not discover in what a glory of gold and crimson⁵ the sun was setting, and how beautiful its reflection over on Pleasure Bay. Then a party of the neighbours' boys were engaged in some dexterous⁶ and pretty bicycle-riding a little way up the road, and he was missing that also.
 
Hereward, a greyhound, only he was fawn-coloured instead of gray, and Ned, a Gordon setter, would now and then come bounding up to their master, expecting to be petted, and look strangely surprised when he took no notice of them. They would plant their forefeet in the ground, with their heads on one side, in a questioning, beseeching⁷ manner, and stand gazing up for a moment into his face, but only for a moment; there were too many circles to be described, and too many matters to be looked into, to waste much time upon such an indifferent master. Presently the click and bang of a swinging screen door roused Mr. Fairfax from his reverie, and he hurried to join his wife, who had just come out from the house.
 
She was a lovely little woman, this Mrs. Fairfax, with a face not unlike Sister Julia's, and whether joy or pathos⁸ found most expression in her clear gray eyes no one could discover.
 
She had no sooner stepped on to the piazza⁹, than Hereward and Ned were fairly leaping upon her. There was a little shawl on her arm, and a lace scarf on her head, which they well knew meant a walk to the beach, and, from their point of view, nothing quite compared with that.
 
“I do not need to ask what you have been thinking about, Curtis,” Mrs. Fairfax said to her husband, when they had gone but a little way; “you are wondering and wondering, and so am I, whatever we shall do with Regie.”
 
“It has been a puzzling question, Alice,” said Mr. Fairfax; “but I believe I am prepared to answer it. I think the best thing we can do will be to leave him here at the beach.”
 
“Why, Curtis dear, that is simply impossible,” Mrs. Fairfax replied, in a decided¹⁰ little way of her own; “there will not be a cottage open here two months from now.”
 
“I know of one cottage, at any rate,” said her husband, “that is open all the year round, and where Reginald and Sister Julia would be likely to have a very happy time of it while we are away.”
 
“Of course, you mean Captain Murray's.”
 
“Of course I do. Don't you agree with me about its being a good place, and had we not better walk right up there now and see if they will consider it?” They had come to the railroad crossing, and the shrill¹¹ whistle of a locomotive brought them to a standstill. Seldom an express train went spinning through Moorlow that Hereward did not run a race with it, and the engineers on the road were always on the lookout¹² for him. Hereward was a very knowing dog; he would lie dozing¹³ in the sun, and let the local trains steam up to the little station and off again, without so much as cocking up an ear, but would detect the approach of the “express” way down the track. To-night proved no exception to the rule. Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax watched him proudly, as in a flash he gathered himself together and started for the race. For fully¹⁴ a quarter of a mile he held his own, and, if he had possessed¹⁵ as inexhaustible a supply of breath as the iron-chested engine, his long limbs might sometimes have won him the victory.
 
As for Ned, this sort of thing was not at all to his taste, and he stood looking stolidly¹⁶ on, as much as to say, “Great waste of time and energy.”
 
Between you and me, had his body been as long, and his legs as slender as Hereward's, he would probably have joined in the wild scamper¹⁷. There are people here and there in the world not at all unlike Ned; they sit and frown upon certain innocent pleasures simply because they are not fitted by nature to enjoy them.
 
Breathless and satisfied, Hereward was soon back again, trotting¹⁸ and sniffing¹⁹ along as though nothing had happened.
 
“I do not believe we had better go to Captain Murray's tonight,” said Mrs. Fairfax, taking up the conversation where the train and Hereward's performances had interrupted it; “I would like time to think it over.”
 
“Oh, I've thought it over enough for both of us, Alice. Besides, you see, we must decide upon some plan pretty quickly; it is only ten days now before we sail.”
 
So Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax kept on down the beach, climbed the short flight of wooden steps that scaled the bulk-head in front of Captain Murray's cottage, and knocked at the door. Mrs. Murray opened it.
 
“Why, how do you do?” she said, with evident surprise and pleasure, as she ushered²⁰ them into the sitting-room²¹.
 
 
9030 
 
Hereward and Ned poked²² their noses in at the door, and acted as though they intended to crowd their bodies in too. One look from Mr. Fairfax seemed to change their minds, and with grave faces and limp tails they lay down on the porch instead.
 
“Here, Harry, bring a chair for Mrs. Fairfax,” said Mrs. Murray, “and Nan, darling, go call your father.”
 
This little sitting-room was the very cosiest²³, perhaps, that one would find from end to end of the whole Jersey²⁴ shore. Cheery and cool-looking in this summer weather, with the linen²⁵ floor covering and the vines at the windows, and so warm and cheery in the fall and winter, with pine logs blazing on the old brass²⁶ and irons.
 
“Father's coming,” announced Nan, returning to the room. “And how's Regie?” asked both the children in one breath.
 
“Oh, he's getting along finely,” answered Mr. Fairfax.
 
“I'm right glad to hear that,” said Mrs. Murray, who always conversed²⁷ with strong accents on certain words. “And it's a good piece of news to carry to bed and dream over,” she added, turning to the children, and looking toward the energetic little clock on the mantel-shelf. “Come, it's high time; a good-night to Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax, and a kiss for your mother.” The children mechanically obeyed, and with reluctant, backward glances trudged²⁸ up the winding²⁹ stairway leading directly from the sitting-room.
 
“Well, well,” exclaimed Captain Murray, a wiry, weatherbeaten man, as he entered the room, “a call from the Fairfaxes; what's up, I wonder?”
 
“Seems to me, you're pretty free, father,” said Mrs. Murray, half apologetically.
 
“Well, something is up,” replied Mr. Fairfax, “one may as well be honest. We have a proposition to make, and we are very much afraid you won't accept it, and then we shall be all at sea again.”
 
“Oh, I see,” laughed Captain Murray, “you want an old sailor to bring you into port, or something like that, eh? Well, if there's anything we can do for you——”
 
“There is something,” said Mr. Fairfax, eagerly, “and a pretty big something too. We want to know if you will take Reginald and Sister Julia into your own snug³⁰ little harbour for three or four months. You know, when we adopted Regie, Mrs. Fairfax promised that he should never stand between us——”
 
“He means,” interrupted Mrs. Fairfax, thinking she could better explain matters, “that if ever the question came up of remaining with Curtis or Reginald, the decision should always be in favour of my husband.”
 
“That is the way of it,” said Mr. Fairfax, “and at last the question has come up. I am obliged to go to Europe for three or four months, and I have no notion of putting that great ocean yonder between my wife and me. Of course, Reginald is not in a condition to travel, and we have been greatly at a loss to know what to do with him. This would be such a fine place for him, if you only would be good enough to let us board him with you.”
 
“I don't know much, after all, about the domestic harbour,” said Captain Murray, with elevated eyebrows³¹. “You must ask the first-mate. What do you say, Mollie Murray?”
 
“Do you think we could really make him comfortable, father?” asked Mrs. Murray, smoothing out her white apron³²; “we live very plain, and the boy has been accustomed to——”
 
“Comfortable! Oh, Mrs. Murray,” interrupted Mrs. Fairfax, “why this seems to me altogether the most comfortable little home that I know of, and Reginald will be so happy here with the children. As for Sister Julia, I am sure she will be a help rather than a trouble, and you will fairly love her before she has been in the house twenty-four hours.”
 
After this the conversation fell into a quiet chat between the “women-folk,” and a more business-like one between Mr. Fairfax and Captain Murray, and when, in its thumping³³, ringing way, the little clock struck nine, everything had been arranged to the satisfaction of everybody.
 
“I cannot tell you what a load is off my mind,” said Mrs. Fairfax, pressing Mrs. Murray's hand in both of hers, as she stood ready to go. “I only hope it has not rolled off on to yours.”
 
“Never you fear, dearie,” Mrs. Murray answered, in her cheerful, whole-souled way.
 
“How about Hereward and Ned?” exclaimed Mr. Fairfax, almost stumbling across both as they lay on the porch. “And how about Reginald's pony³⁴? Can you care for them too, Captain Murray?”
 
“Yes, yes, send 'em along. We'll do our best by all hands.”
 
“Oh, Mrs. Murray,” said Mrs. Fairfax, turning back for a moment, “please don't tell the children about the plan. Regie would so much enjoy telling them himself.”
 
“Oh, to be sure,” she answered; “I'll not say a word. Happy secrets are hard things for me to keep; but I'll keep this, I promise you.”
 
The two dogs who had come over in such rollicking fashion, trotted³⁵ back again quietly enough, but Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax felt half inclined to dance all the way home, so delighted were they over the success of this splendid plan for Regie.