“Yes. I should have gone yesterday but for the child not being quite well,” Regina responded.
“Anyway, she’s all right to-day—well enough for you to leave her with nurse. You had better go across and spend the day, and I’ll come round that way and fetch you home in the evening.”
To this arrangement Regina agreed, and she went over to her father’s house as soon as she had concluded arrangements for the children’s meals. She did not, however, return to Fairview—as their house was called—that evening with Alfred. No, she remained under the paternal roof for a few days, and then, when she at length returned to her home and her children, she was accompanied by the old man, who was as a ship without a rudder when he found himself bereft of the wife for whom he had served, even as Jacob served seven years for Rachel.
It was the beginning of the end for old Mr. Brown. He declined absolutely to go back to the house where he had lived so long and so happily, and took up his permanent abode at Fairview. Very soon the better part of the furniture, and certain priceless possessions with which there was no thought of parting, were transferred from the one house to the other, the old domicile was done up and eventually let, and then, as so often happens with old people who have been uprooted from their regular life, Mr. Brown sank into extreme illness.
Poor man, he had never been ill in his life, and he took to it badly. One paralytic stroke succeeded another, and, at last, after a few months of much repining and wearing suffering, he passed quietly away, his last words being that he was going to rejoin his dear wife on the other side.
It was then that the Alfred Whittakers left Fairview.
“I shall never fancy the house again since poor father’s death,” said Regina on the evening of the funeral.
“No, I can quite believe that,” returned Alfred Whittaker, sympathetically. “Well,” he added after a pause, “you will be able to afford a larger house if you want it.”
“I should like a larger garden,” said Regina. “I think children brought up without a garden are generally unhappy little creatures, and ours are getting big enough to enjoy it.”
By that time Julia was nine years old, and Maud, of course, two years older still. Their father and mother therefore gave notice to their landlord, and cast about in their minds for some new and desirable neighborhood which would contain a new and desirable residence.