“I'm right glad to hear that,” said Mrs. Murray, who always conversed with strong accents on certain words. “And it's a good piece of news to carry to bed and dream over,” she added, turning to the children, and looking toward the energetic little clock on the mantel-shelf. “Come, it's high time; a good-night to Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax, and a kiss for your mother.” The children mechanically obeyed, and with reluctant, backward glances trudged up the winding stairway leading directly from the sitting-room.
“Well, well,” exclaimed Captain Murray, a wiry, weatherbeaten man, as he entered the room, “a call from the Fairfaxes; what's up, I wonder?”
“Seems to me, you're pretty free, father,” said Mrs. Murray, half apologetically.
“Well, something is up,” replied Mr. Fairfax, “one may as well be honest. We have a proposition to make, and we are very much afraid you won't accept it, and then we shall be all at sea again.”
“Oh, I see,” laughed Captain Murray, “you want an old sailor to bring you into port, or something like that, eh? Well, if there's anything we can do for you——”
“There is something,” said Mr. Fairfax, eagerly, “and a pretty big something too. We want to know if you will take Reginald and Sister Julia into your own snug little harbour for three or four months. You know, when we adopted Regie, Mrs. Fairfax promised that he should never stand between us——”
“He means,” interrupted Mrs. Fairfax, thinking she could better explain matters, “that if ever the question came up of remaining with Curtis or Reginald, the decision should always be in favour of my husband.”
“That is the way of it,” said Mr. Fairfax, “and at last the question has come up. I am obliged to go to Europe for three or four months, and I have no notion of putting that great ocean yonder between my wife and me. Of course, Reginald is not in a condition to travel, and we have been greatly at a loss to know what to do with him. This would be such a fine place for him, if you only would be good enough to let us board him with you.”
“I don't know much, after all, about the domestic harbour,” said Captain Murray, with elevated eyebrows. “You must ask the first-mate. What do you say, Mollie Murray?”
“Do you think we could really make him comfortable, father?” asked Mrs. Murray, smoothing out her white apron; “we live very plain, and the boy has been accustomed to——”