'Unless,' said Geordie slowly,—'unless you would let me really camp out, mamma? I could rig up a little tent, or—I wouldn't much mind sleeping in Barnes's hut?'
'No, no,' mamma replied decidedly. 'I could not allow anything of the kind. Our living at the Hut is only possible because it is not to be like rough camping out, but as healthy and "civilised" as if we were in a house. So put that out of your head, my dear boy. I could not risk your catching cold, or anything of that sort. Remember, I feel responsible to your father in my way for you all, just as you two big ones feel so for me,' she added with one of her own dear smiles.
'And then, Dods,' I said, 'it wouldn't be safe—I know I wouldn't feel safe—without having you actually in the house, even though Barnes's hut is so near.'
I think Geordie liked my saying that. But I really meant it.
So we went on wondering and puzzling as to what Taisy meant. It was quite an amusement to us that first evening of papa's being away. And it was worth wondering about, for Taisy was a very clever girl—what is called 'practical.'
'If she could come and be with us, I'm sure she would be a great help,' I thought. 'She is so full of nice ideas and funny ones too, and she never has headaches or neuralgia or horrid things like that. And yet she is so kind—I remember that time I sprained my ankle. She was so good.'
The next few days were so busy, however, that all thought even of Taisy and her balloon went out of our heads. I only remember packings and unpackings and arranging and rearrangings, all in a jumble together, ending, nevertheless, in a great deal of satisfaction. The afternoon we went to the Hut 'for good,' it really looked nice enough for us to feel it, for the time, more 'home' than the big house, which, on the surface, seemed rather upset still, though in reality it was nearly ready for the tenants, having gone through a magnificent spring cleaning. But our own little belongings were absent, and such of the rooms as were quite in order, to our eyes looked bare and unfamiliar, so that we were not sorry to be actually settled at the Hut.
The evenings were still a little chilly, which I, for one, did not regret, as it gave an excuse for nice bright fires in the sitting-rooms and mamma's bedroom. And the children had already picked up a good lot of fir cones, so that the pleasant scent of the trees seemed to be inside as well as out of doors.
'It is cosy, isn't it, mamma?' I said, as we stood for a minute or two in what was now the little drawing-room; 'and oh, aren't you glad not to be starting on a railway journey to some strange place, or even driving to that little house at Kirke which you told me about as the best we could have got?'
'Yes, indeed, darling,' mamma replied. 'And I am so glad to be able to date my first letter to papa from the Hut. I must make time to write to him to-morrow morning; it will just catch the mail.'