“I must say I think it is largely in your imagination, my dear,” replied her husband, “though I can’t say that he looks more like any one else than like Max or his father.”
“Well, time will show,” she said, laughingly, and gazing at the babe with all a mother’s admiring love, “we’ll see what you and Max have to say in another month.”
After that no day passed without an interview between the captain and his wife, and as soon as both were able for the short journey, they went to Ion for a week, taking all the children with them. The Lelands were there at the same time, and a very delightful holiday it proved to all, old and young, guests and entertainers.
Then for another week the same company gathered at Fairview.
It was now late in the summer, and it seemed that every body was longing for sea-breezes. Some one, one evening as they sat in the veranda, expressed the desire and started the queries whether it would not be advisable to go to some sea-side resort, and which was most to be preferred.
The first question was soon decided in the affirmative.
Then Zoe exclaimed, “Let us go to Nantucket! We had such a delightful time there; and we can travel nearly all the way by sea, so that the journey will not be hard for our recovering invalids.”
The motion was carried by acclamation.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Lulu, clapping her hands. “I’d rather go there than to any other place I can think of. I liked it so much before, and it’ll be twice as nice for me with you along, Eva; ’twill be such fun to show you all the interesting places. And O, papa, may we take the ponies with us?”
“Yes,” he said, “I shall arrange for that; quite for their sakes, of course,” he added, jestingly, “for no doubt they will enjoy the sea-breezes as much as the rest of us.”