“That won’t influence Phillis.”
“No! but it will make me more eligible in the eyes of her father and mother.” I made no answer.
“You give me your best wishes, Paul,” said he, almost pleading. “You would like me for a cousin?”
I heard the scream and whistle of the engine ready down at the sheds.
“Ay, that I should,” I replied, suddenly softened towards my friend now that he was going away. “I wish you were to be married to-morrow, and I were to be best man.”
“Thank you, lad. Now for this cursed portmanteau (how the minister would be shocked); but it is heavy!” and off we sped into the darkness. He only just caught the night train at Eltham, and I slept, desolately enough, at my old lodgings at Miss Dawsons’, for that night. Of course the next few days I was busier than ever, doing both his work and my own. Then came a letter from him, very short and affectionate. He was going out in the Saturday steamer, as he had more than half expected; and by the following Monday the man who was to succeed him would be down at Eltham. There was a P.S., with only these words:—“My nosegay goes with me to Canada, but I do not need it to remind me of Hope Farm.”
Saturday came; but it was very late before I could go out to the farm. It was a frosty night, the stars shone clear above me, and the road was crisping beneath my feet. They must have heard my footsteps before I got up to the house. They were sitting at their usual employments in the house-place when I went in. Phillis’s eyes went beyond me in their look of welcome, and then fell in quiet disappointment on her work.
“And where’s Mr Holdsworth?” asked cousin Holman, in a minute or two. “I hope his cold is not worse,—I did not like his short cough.”
I laughed awkwardly; for I felt that I was the bearer of unpleasant news.
“His cold had need be better—for he’s gone—gone away to Canada!”