RULY no one ever looked into a face more beaming than Regie's when Mrs. Fairfax told him of their plan to leave him in Sister Julia's care, and that they were both to board at the Murrays.
“I've been wondering what you would do,” said Regie. “I knew you could not take along a boy on crutches; and, Mamma Fairfax,” he added, ruefully, “I thought I was in the way for once at any rate.”
Then Mrs. Fairfax drew the little fellow into her lap, and said, very tenderly and earnestly, “Remember this, Regie Fairfax: you have never been in the way yet, and you never will be so long as you stay the dear good boy you are to-day.” A grateful, happy look came into Regie's face, and he nestled his head close down on Mamma Fairfax's shoulder, quite forgetting that nine-year-old boys are supposed not to care in the least for that sort of thing.
Well, the day for the move to the Murrays dawned at last, though at times it had seemed to Regie as if it never would come.
In the thought that he was going to live in the same house with Nan and Harry, the little reprobate almost forgot he was to say good-bye to Papa and Mamma Fairfax for three whole months at least. But Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax were quite willing he should forget it, and were only too delighted to see the little fellow anticipating so much happiness. It would have been sad enough to have sailed away over that great ocean, leaving a brokenhearted as well as a broken-legged little Reginald behind them.
Still dependent upon his crutches, Regie of course could not help very much with the packing, but as he sat on the piazza, in the warm September sunshine, Sister Julia gave him a lapful of his own neckties to sort over and fold into a box. They were to move that very afternoon. It was half-past eleven now, and at twelve Harry and Nan were coming, as they thought, to say “Good-bye.”
Puzzled little Nan and Harry! They had not heard a word of Reginald's coming to stay with them. Had they known it, they would not have been trudging sorrowfully along the beach as they were that very moment. Naturally they wondered at the strange preparations going forward at home. Fresh dimity curtains had been tacked up in the room over the kitchen, and there was a new bowl and pitcher on the wash-stand, and some red-bordered towels that were very beautiful in Nan's eyes. But when the children asked their mother the reason for all this, she had told them that times were a little hard, as indeed they were, and that they were going to take a couple to board.
“I don't like the idea of a couple to board at all,” Harry had confided to Nan when they were gathering up the chips one morning in the woodshed.
“Neither do I,” sighed Nan, “but if times are hard of course we ought to make the best of it.” That Sister Julia and Reginald were the couple never entered their foolish little heads for a second.