Mrs. Burford shook her head, and her lips quivered. There was a minute's silence, then she said, quietly: "If it was possible, we should carry out Dr. Brewer's prescription, Tom, but it is not. We must live within our income, and we could not do that if we took a holiday under existing circumstances. I hope, next year, if your father should get a rise—"
Tom, who was standing by the open window, gazing into the small patch of flower garden which divided the house from the road, turned sharply and looked at his mother as her voice altered and stopped. Mrs. Burford was seated in a low chair, a stocking, which she had been darning, drawn over her left hand, but she had ceased working, for she could not see on account of the tears which had suddenly filled her eyes. The boy's heart swelled with sympathy for her as he saw the sad feelings she was trying to keep down. "Oh, Mother," he cried, "don't look like that! I daresay Nellie will get quite well without going away! You know she is much better than she was a month ago! Why, I heard you say, yesterday, that you really thought she was a little fatter! And she's quite lost her cough!"
"Hush!" whispered Mrs. Burford, blinking away her tears, and hastily restarting her work, "here she comes! Well, Nellie, my dear!"
The door had opened to admit a little girl, followed by a small, smooth-haired fox-terrier. She crossed the room to her mother's side, where she seated herself on a stool, leaning her curly golden head against the arm of her mother's chair; she was a very pretty child, nearly two years younger than Tom, but whereas six months before she had been full of merriment and high spirits, she was now, as her brother complained, "as quiet as a mouse and with no fun left in her." This change was the result of a serious illness she had had in the spring.
"Shall we take Tim for a walk, Nellie?" suggested Tom, as the terrier came up to him, and stood wagging his tail and looking at him with an eager expression, which he read aright, in his sharp brown eyes. "He's asking me to go," he added.
Tim was a very intelligent little animal, and his face, quaintly marked, one side quite white and the other black and tan, was wonderfully expressive; at the present moment it seemed to say: "Come out into the sunshine! Don't stop indoors wasting this beautiful summer afternoon!"
"I'm tired, Tom," Nellie replied, "I'd rather stay with Mother if you don't mind. Besides, if I don't go you'll be able to take Tim farther—I couldn't walk very far, you know."
This was true, so Tom said no more and left his sister at home. Five minutes later, with Tim trotting on ahead of him, he had turned his back on Ladysmith Terrace, and was strolling along a wider road than the one in which his home was situated, which led to the open country. By and by he came within sight of a pretty ivy-covered detached house, with a well-kept lawn before it, around which, on one side, was a wide carriage-drive, whilst the other side was edged with flower-beds, gay with summer and early autumn flowers. This was Halcyon Villa, the residence of Miss Perry, an elderly maiden lady who was said to be very rich.
Tom, walking along with his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his mind full of far from happy thoughts, was paying no attention to Tim, and did not observe that, on reaching the big iron gate leading into the grounds of Halcyon Villa, he had met another dog—an Irish terrier; and, therefore, he looked up with a start at the sound of a voice— a startled voice which cried:
"Bounce! Bounce! Come here! Oh, please, whoever you are, take your dog away!"