IT had been arranged that for the first week Regie and Harry¹ and Nan should be allowed to do pretty much as they liked, but after that lessons should be regularly begun with Sister Julia. Rex and Harry had reached about the' same point in their studies, but poor little Nan was a good way behind, farther than her years would warrant. All the winter before she had attended school at the Branch, but she had pleaded very hard not to be sent back again.
 
“It is such a large school,” she had told her mother, “that when you get ahead they have to hold you back for the other girls, and so you don't learn very much.”
 
Mrs. Murray could not help smiling at her excuse for having made so little progress, knowing well enough the fault lay in the fact that she could not or would not apply her mind to the task which had been set her, but Nan hailed with delight this plan for studying with Sister Julia. Of course it had to be quite independently of the boys, because they were so far ahead of her, but somehow or other she was really in earnest about the matter, and did get along finely. The greatest incentive² to hard study came to her in the mortification³ she felt one evening at not being able to enter into a game of Regie's, because she could not read the printing on the cards belonging to the game.
 
 
Now that the children had settled down to their schooling⁴ the time flew faster than ever, and before they knew it, enough days had come and gone to allow “Uncle Sam,” one morning, to shake a letter out of his mail-bag, directed to Regie and postmarked “London.”
 
“See here, Reginald, I've brought something for you,” called Captain Murray, coming with the mail, just as the children were setting off from the house, for it was Saturday and they had planned to spend the morning on the beach.
 
“Hurrah! here's another!” shouted Regie, for he had already received a steamer letter, which had been mailed when the Alaska touched at Queenstown.
 
“Yes, another letter,” answered the captain, handing it to him, “and it's a rouser.”
 
Regie stood irresolute⁵ a moment. “I tell you, boys,” he said, always forgetting that Nan could not be included under this general title, “I tell you, I'll save it till we get fixed⁶ all comfortable on the beach, and then I'll read it to you.”
 
“All right; let's start,” said Harry, and the little party started, though Rex had some misgivings⁷ as to his ability to master Mamma Fairfax's handwriting, for he knew from the direction that the letter was from her. “We haven't played that king game much,” he said, as they trudged⁸ along. He was able to manage with a little cane⁹ now in place of the crutches¹⁰.
 
“Seems to me we're kind of playing it,” answered Harry, glancing down at a heavy rug that he himself was carrying, and then over towards a luncheon¹¹ basket with which Nan was laden¹²: “at any rate the body-guard are sort of waiting on Your Highness.”
 
“Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Harry Murray?” cried Nan, resenting the indignity¹³. “You oughtn't to expect Regie to help carry things until he can walk as well as you and I do.”
 
“I hope he'll walk a good sight better than you do before very long,” retorted Harry, in a teasing mood. “See, Nan, this is the way you always get over the ground,” and Harry threw aside the rug the better to imitate Nan's funny gait, characterised by a straightness on Nan's part amounting to an actual bending backward, and a jerky, independent little step. Harry hit it exactly, and Regie laughed immoderately, which was not very polite, considering Nan's gallant¹⁴ defence of him a few moments before. But Nan smiled, too, in spite of herself.
 
“I can't help it if I am too straight,” she said; “there's one good thing,—straight people are not so dangerous of having consumption.”
 
“Look out, Nan, you'll choke if you use such big words,” advised Harry.
 
“No, really, I think it would be real fun to play the king game this morning,” urged Regie, as they came to a spot on the beach where, by mutual¹⁵ consent, they spread out the rug and sat down.
 
“All right, then,” replied Harry, “and I'll be the king.”
 
“Then I shall not play,” said Nan, “I am not going to keep changing kings every day.”
 
“Of course not,” Regie laughed, “you believe in the divine right, don't you, Nan?” Regie had just learned what “divine right” meant, and proudly aired his knowledge.
 
“I don't know,” said Nan, “but whenever we play I believe in your being the king; I never could think of Harry as a king for a moment. Besides, you're our company, and we ought to wait on you.”
 
“Bosh!” said Harry, “I don't call people what boards in your house, company.”
 
“'What boards!'” repeated Nan. “Well, I should think you'd better brush up your grammar, Mr. Murray. Oh, the letter,” she added, nodding in the direction of Regie's pocket.
 
“Oh, to be sure; why, I'd almost forgotten it,” and Rex drew out his knife and carefully cut the envelope open at one end, after a neat little fashion of his own.
 
“'London, September 19th. My dear Reginald,'” he read, then paused, for in the very first sentence he discovered a word that he could not quite make out.
 
“Guess I'd better read it to myself first,” he said, “there may be something private in it.” Harry gave a significant cough, which meant that it was easy enough to see through such a flimsy excuse as that. Regie wisely paid no attention to it. Both the children knew it must necessarily be many minutes before they would be favoured with the contents of the letter, so Nan threw herself back on the rug, laid one arm under her head, and gazing out over the ocean gave herself up to the most delightful¹⁶ daydreams¹⁷. Harry resorted to whittling¹⁸, that occupation of all leisure moments.
 
Suddenly, after ten minutes of unbroken quiet, Regie began again, making brief halts now and then before words that still proved a little puzzling.
 
“London, September 19th.
 
“'My dear Reginald,—I doubt if there is a half hour in which we do not speak of you, or five minutes in that half hour in which we do not think of you, and so you can understand that we are pretty fond of a little fellow we have left behind us. Indeed, Papa Fairfax said, only a few minutes ago, that he wanted so much to see Regie that if he was not sure that he was very happy he thinks he would have to send some one away to America to bring him over.'”
 
“Oh! do you think he will?” questioned Nan.
 
“Of course not, goosie,” Harry retorted, “don't interrupt again. Go on, Rex.”
 
——“'But if he did,'” Regie resumed, “'you would have to hurry to catch us, for we shall be obliged to travel pretty fast as soon as we leave London. You do not need to get out the atlas¹⁹ to look up the place where this letter comes from, do you? Even little Nan knows how London looks on the map.'”
 
“Don't believe it,” muttered Harry, half under his breath, but loudly enough for Nan to hear him.
 
“Do, too,” whispered Nan, with a defiant²⁰ shake of her curls; “but please don't interrupt. Go on, Rex.” Rex did not mind these interruptions in the least, as they gave him a chance to look ahead a little.
 
“'It is ten years,'” he went on, reading slowly, “'since Papa Fairfax and I were here before, and we hardly know this London in the sunshine, for the old London of fog and rain, since we are having wonderfully clear weather. I shall have to wait till we reach home to tell you all about the sights of London. When you are older I shall hope to visit with you all the places where Papa Fairfax and I have been this morning,—Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul's, and the Tower. How you will enjoy the Tower, but in a sad sort of way, because so many sorrowful things have happened there. Last evening we strolled in for a while to see Madame Tussaud's wax figures, naturally looking rather more grimy and dusty than they did ten years ago.
 
“'And now, Rex, I have several other letters to send off by this same steamer, so this must do for the present. Do not forget to write once a week surely, either to Papa Fairfax or to me.
 
“'Yours lovingly,
 
“'Mamma Fairfax.
 
“That's a nice letter,” said Regie, gazing rather wistfully out to sea.
 
“Very nice,” said Nan, “but you don't want to go, do you?”
 
Poor little Nan was blessed with a lively imagination.
 
I say “poor Nan,” for these lively imaginations play such sorry tricks upon the little folk and big folk who happen to possess them. Nan had but to catch a glimpse of the wistful look in Regie's eyes straightway to make up her mind that he was unhappy and lonely, and would gladly leave them all if he could.
 
“No, I don't want to go exactly,” answered Rex; “but I guess you'd feel a little queer sometimes if that great ocean were between you and your father and mother.”
 
“I do not believe I'd mind if I was on the same side of it with you, Regie,” said Nan, betraying her unbounded admiration²¹ for his little Royal Highness.
 
“Nan, you're a regular spoony,” remarked Harry.
 
“I don't know what a spoony is,” Nan answered; “but of course it's something horrid²², or you would not call me one,” and she gave a little sigh which seemed to come almost from the soles of her boot............