"Would you?" said Millie slowly. "I never thought of that before. Perhaps I had better not go then."
"That's nonsense; you and I are so different, Millie. Besides, I can't quite tolerate being patronised yet," he said bitterly.
Millie looked puzzled. "What does that mean?" she asked with knitted brows.
"O never mind," he replied, with a little laugh. "If you don't know, it's just as well that you shouldn't be told. 'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.' O Millie," he burst out suddenly, after a pause, "I wish I were dead."
"My darling," she said lovingly, as she nestled closer to him and put her hand in his, "don't say that, for my sake. O how I wish I could make you happier! I wish you felt as I do—that God will send us better times if we are only patient, and will trust Him. Don't you remember what mother used to say about there being a silver lining to every cloud? I am sure there is a silver lining to our cloud, if we would only see it."
"No, Millie, there is not," he answered in a despondent voice. "Everything is against us. We are being dragged down lower and lower. I ought to be doing something better than putting up parcels of grocery, and carrying them to people's houses, and you ought to be going to school."
"But perhaps when the master of the shop sees how clever you are," said Millie, ignoring that part of Phil's speech that referred to herself, "perhaps he'll let you serve behind the counter, or some day, Phil, you might keep the books; just think of that!"
Millie had a profound belief in her brother's abilities to do anything and everything; for hadn't he been the very first boy in the school at Chormouth, and didn't their mother say that her son seemed to have such a liking for books that she would try to make a schoolmaster of him?
"Anyhow, Millie," Phil said, with an effort to be cheerful, "I will earn enough money for us both some day. But there, I say that so often, that you must be tired of hearing it. Look away yonder. Do you see the moon coming up over the chimneys there?"
Millie looked in the direction to which he pointed.