“That seems very extravagant,” said Regie, who had quite a business way of looking at matters.
“I think I would like to live back here, where things grow as though they loved it, and not because they are made to,” Nan remarked, thoughtfully.
“Indeed, I know better, Nannie Murray; you love the sea too much to be contented away from it a week,” Harry remarked, with brotherly superiority. “Why, mother took you to Grandma Murray's when you were only a scrap of a baby, and you cried and fretted so she 'was ashamed of you, and had to bring you home. The moment you caught sight of the sea you crowed and clapped your little hands, and behaved like another baby altogether. No, sir-ree, you'd be sick of living back here in a week.”
“Well, perhaps I would,” Nan admitted, for she knew, after all, that no sound was so sweet in her ears as the roar of the breakers on the beach, nor anything that looked quite so beautiful to her as the dear old ocean, whether under a blue sky or a grey one.
By this time they had reached Regie's tree. It stood just at the top of a little descent in the road, and not many yards away from one of the numerous railroad crossings which traverse that part of the country.
Rex was helped out to a comfortable seat under it. Harry took Pet out of the shafts and tied him to a rail fence near by, while Nan, a perfect counterpart of her energetic mother, began transferring the luncheon from the basket to the grass, and spreading it out so that it should look as inviting as possible.
Then there was silence as far as any continued conversation was concerned for the space of fifteen minutes. There was an occasional “These biscuits are delicious,” or a “Please pass me the sponge cake,” but that was all. A good appetite and plenty to gratify it generally quiets, for the time being, even the most incessant of little chatterboxes.