HE king's body-guard waited in the outer court of the palace, but the palace was only a dull, red cottage, and the court a low porch that surrounded three sides of it. As for the body-guard, they were not dressed as such great people are wont to be. One of them wore a calico dress, canvas shoes, and an untrimmed hat of soft red felt. The other, for there were but two of them, was resplendent in gray knickerbockers, and a blue flannel shirt, with white anchors worked in the corners of the sailor-shaped collar. As for the king, but a short time before' he had been only a rollicking little fellow astride of a cherry tree bough, and a blue-eyed little Nan had stood holding out her apron to catch the cherries he threw down, and gazing up at him with a face full of wonder at his daring. But the old and brittle bough had suddenly given way under his weight, and Reginald Fairfax tumbled in a sad little heap to the ground.
Quick as a flash Nan sat down by his side, with her feet straight out before her, and drew the brown head into her lap, while the tears fell fast on the face that seemed so still and lifeless. Her brother Harry ran for the young doctor up at the hotel, as fast as his stout little legs could carry him.
All this had happened only last week, and now Reginald lay on a hospital cot in his own little room in the cottage, and Harry and Nan were waiting on the porch till the doctor should come out and they could be admitted.
They were both very quiet, for they had not seen Regie since the accident, and were awed at the thought of being soon ushered into his presence. Harry kept making round holes in the gravel path with the heel of his boot; Nan sat staring in abstracted fashion at a little wreath of oak leaves which she was balancing on one extended hand.
Presently the doctor came out. “You can go up now,” he said, “Regie expects you.” Then he caught up his tennis racquet, which he had left on the porch, and hurried away, for the doctor was taking his vacation. If he had not been quite a young doctor, perhaps he would rather have forgotten for those two short weeks that there was such a thing as a patient in the world. But as matters stood he did not seem to mind in the least, that now and then he must stop whatever he was doing, and run over to see “how the little Fairfax boy was coming on,” and, young as he was, he had set Regie's leg as neatly and dexterously as any older and more experienced surgeon could have set it.