“What's a body-guard?” asked Regie, in a tone as though he doubted the merits of everything with which he could not claim previous acquaintance.
“Oh! it's a——, but we are not going to tell many people,” answered Harry, glancing significantly toward a room opening-out of Regie's, where some one, a stranger to him, sat knitting.
“She's only my nurse,” Regie explained; “you mustn't mind her, for she'll have to be round a great deal, and you don't catch me having a body-guard unless I know just what it is.”
“It won't hurt you,” laughed Nan, with her hands behind her back, and still standing in the centre of the room. Harry had made so bold as to take a seat on the edge of a high-backed rocker, so very much on the edge, in fact, that it threatened to land him on the floor any moment.
“Why don't you sit down, Nan?” Reginald asked at last.
“I can't sit down, Regie, because of the crown,” and Nan looked beseechingly toward Harry, as if acting under orders.
“Yes, you may show it now,” was Harry's patronising answer; whereupon Nan exultingly held up the little oak wreath before Regie's wondering gaze.
“Oh! is that the crown?” and Regie betrayed a shade of disappointment in his tone, having a conviction that such articles ought to be made of gold, or at least of silver.
“Oh! Regie, don't you like it? It took me a whole day to make it,” Nan exclaimed, with a perceptible quiver in her voice.
“Oh yes, it's very nice, very nice indeed! only—well! it'll wither, you know.”