“Thank you, Mr. Charley, thank you kindly. Good-bye, Miss Winnie.”
“Good-bye, Phil.”
The two children smiled into each other’s eyes. It was the last look they ever exchanged on earth.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAST FLIGHT.
The summer weather lasted only three days longer, but those three days were not wasted.
Winifred was so anxious to get the guinea-fowls into their new home, that everything else for a while gave way to that plan.
The carpenter was called in to mend the little shed, and to wire in a great square from the field to make a run for the expected tenants. The thatcher came with his straw to fill up the holes in the roof, and the blacksmith fixed an iron drinking-trough in one corner, and brought up a padlock for the door of the shed.
Winifred watched all these proceedings with the greatest interest. She had not felt so strong again as she had done on Sunday; she could not walk to the lodge or do anything which required much exertion; but she could just manage to get down to the home field where the work was going on, and sit upon a tree-stump near at hand to watch the men at work, and to ask questions as to how and why they did this or that. Winifred found it all very interesting, and was delighted when on the evening of the second day the home was pronounced complete.