EGIE'S accident had happened late in June, and the weeks had worn slowly away with their dull monotony varied by many a visit from loyal Nan and Harry. Now, it was the middle of August, and Regie was about again, only with an addition to the bodyguard in the shape of two sturdy little crutches. It happened one evening about this time, when Regie had been stowed away for the night, that Mr. Fairfax was walking up and down in front of his cottage in a “brown study,” which means, you know, that he was thinking too hard about something in particular, to pay any attention to things in general. It seemed a pity he should not discover in what a glory of gold and crimson the sun was setting, and how beautiful its reflection over on Pleasure Bay. Then a party of the neighbours' boys were engaged in some dexterous and pretty bicycle-riding a little way up the road, and he was missing that also.
Hereward, a greyhound, only he was fawn-coloured instead of gray, and Ned, a Gordon setter, would now and then come bounding up to their master, expecting to be petted, and look strangely surprised when he took no notice of them. They would plant their forefeet in the ground, with their heads on one side, in a questioning, beseeching manner, and stand gazing up for a moment into his face, but only for a moment; there were too many circles to be described, and too many matters to be looked into, to waste much time upon such an indifferent master. Presently the click and bang of a swinging screen door roused Mr. Fairfax from his reverie, and he hurried to join his wife, who had just come out from the house.
She was a lovely little woman, this Mrs. Fairfax, with a face not unlike Sister Julia's, and whether joy or pathos found most expression in her clear gray eyes no one could discover.
She had no sooner stepped on to the piazza, than Hereward and Ned were fairly leaping upon her. There was a little shawl on her arm, and a lace scarf on her head, which they well knew meant a walk to the beach, and, from their point of view, nothing quite compared with that.
“I do not need to ask what you have been thinking about, Curtis,” Mrs. Fairfax said to her husband, when they had gone but a little way; “you are wondering and wondering, and so am I, whatever we shall do with Regie.”
“It has been a puzzling question, Alice,” said Mr. Fairfax; “but I believe I am prepared to answer it. I think the best thing we can do will be to leave him here at the beach.”
“Why, Curtis dear, that is simply impossible,” Mrs. Fairfax replied, in a decided little way of her own; “there will not be a cottage open here two months from now.”
“I know of one cottage, at any rate,” said her husband, “that is open all the year round, and where Reginald and Sister Julia would be likely to have a very happy time of it while we are away.”