"Mind! Oh, I am so grateful to you. It is a pretty book outside!" she exclaimed with almost childish delight.
"It is prettier inside than outside," Philip Percival said. "I feel as if all the children were my particular friends; and as to the cedars, I have sat under them, and know the two ring-doves that come and sing their song to little Pamela."
"Oh, you can't think how glad I am you like my book; and—has Mr. Darte sent the money? because you know it is yours, and I hope when I get well to write another story better than this, and you shall have the rest of the money then if you can wait."
Philip Percival felt a choking sensation in his throat, and he could not speak. And Salome, her face flushing rosy red, went on,—
"I know it is a great deal to ask, and you have been so good and kind to Raymond. He says, if ever he is worth anything it will be your doing."
"Yours rather, I should say," Philip murmured.
"I feel as if I could never, never repay you for all you have done," Salome went on; "but you know I am grateful. We are all of us so grateful to you. Raymond is quite different since he had you for a friend, and he will do well now, I think."
"I had something to say about Raymond. I am not tiring you, am I?" he asked anxiously, for the bright colour had left her face and she laid her head back on the cushions.
"No, oh no; only pleasure is somehow as hard to bear as pain, in a different way. I have so longed for the day when I could show mother and the boys my book, and here it is. Only Reginald knew about it, and since I have been better I have asked him if he had heard anything of the publisher, and he has always said it was all right, he thought, and the book would come out one day. He did not tell me you had done all this for me."
"Reginald can keep a secret," Philip said, "or he is not the boy I take him for. Now, if you can listen without being too tired, I want to tell you something about Raymond and me. Mr. Warde wishes to send me out to a West India station in Barbadoes, to look after the business there and superintend some change in the sugar-planting. He offers me a very good salary, and I am to have a clerk, of course. Raymond thinks he should like to go with me in that capacity, and I believe Dr. Wilton quite approves the plan. Will Mrs. Wilton, and will you, approve also?"