"Yes," said the boy, "it is too high for me to understand yet."
"And marriage is still higher," continued Margaret; "you will understand something of death first. Some day, when you are years older, I will talk to you about marriage, but not now. And, Philip, do not talk foolishly about a thing that is too high for you to understand."
"No, mother," he said gravely.
"Phyllis is not your little sister," she said, "but she will be like a sister to you for many years to come; and she will always be your friend, if you are good children."
It was in keeping with Philip's thoughtful and steadfast nature never again to speak of Phyllis as his little wife, or to allow anyone about him to do so. But constantly, by a word dropped now and again, Laura kept alive in his mind the idea that Phyllis would some day be his wife. To Phyllis she spoke as if her whole life was to be fitted to meet Philip's wishes. It was skillfully and subtly done; never being so definite as to excite opposition in the nature of either of them. Year after year Phyllis was taught that the one person in the world whom she was bound to please was her cousin Philip.
But when Phyllis was fourteen, and Philip, a few months older, was an Eton schoolboy, Laura thought it wisest to put some little check upon their intimacy, which was too much like that of brother and sister. Phyllis was at an age when a country girl is apt to be something of a hoyden. She rode after the hounds with as much spirit as her brothers; could play at cricket as well as any of them; and was an adept at climbing trees. She could shoot and fish fairly well, and tramped about the country with the boys, never owning to fatigue. But her mother shrewdly suspected that none of these accomplishments would retain their charm for Philip, when he entered upon that romantic and sentimental era of a young man's life during which she hoped to successfully attach him to Phyllis. If she was to be the accomplished and cultivated girl likely to attract him then, she must be sent away for some years.
So Phyllis was sent away, coming home for her holidays generally when Philip was absent; only meeting for a few days at Christmas just to keep them in mind of one another. So well and wisely did Laura manage that Margaret did not notice that virtually Phyllis was separated both from her brothers and her cousins. She only felt that the girl, whom she loved very tenderly, was undergoing a change which was distasteful to her.
The night before Phyllis left home for the first time, her mother went into the little room opening out of her own bedroom, where the girl had slept ever since she was a child. Laura held the shaded lamp up to see if she was sleeping, and thought with exultation how pretty the face was on which the light fell. She put the lamp away into the other room, and sat down in the dusk by her young daughter.
"Phyllis," she said, with her hand resting fondly on the girl's head, "there's one thing I must say to you before you go away to school; but it must be between you and me, a secret. You must not speak of it to anybody else; not even to Dick, or your father. You love Philip, my darling?"
"Oh, yes, mother!" she answered, "I have always loved him."