"No, not yet."
"Will you help me a bit afterwards?"
"Of course I will. Exercise 40? Why, you're getting on famously. How surprised Mr. Millen will be when you go back the week after next!"
For a moment Giles made no answer. When he looked up, his lip was quivering. He rarely showed any deep outward sign of emotion, and until now Edgar had never really known how deep a grief it was to him to be obliged to get his education at home.
"Don't tease a fellow," he said, trying hard to smile and speak bravely. "But when I go back, they'll find I haven't wasted my time."
"I'm not teasing; I mean it," said Edgar. "I'm to have more money from now, and to-day Mr. Darby—that's the head man in the firm, you know—gave me a sovereign because I had had the ordinary sense to see a blunder somebody had made in the books. We'll borrow the rest of mother until I get my next month's salary then I'll pay her back. And we'll ask her to write to Mr. Millen this very evening, send him the fee for the next term, and tell him to expect you after the holidays."
As Edgar went on talking, Giles' face became radiant. Now it suddenly grow serious.
"But are you sure you don't want anything yourself?" he asked. "You said the other night you wished you had a book on medicine. I forget the name of it. Couldn't you buy it with this sovereign?"
"Perhaps I might," replied Edgar, lightly, "but getting it for myself wouldn't give me half so much pleasure as sanding you to school. Besides," he continued, more gravely, "I daresay I shall get the book after a while. I am beginning to believe in that old saying, 'All things come round to him who will but wait.' Do you know who put that belief into me in the first instance?"
Giles shook his head.