Phil bent down—he could just manage to do that—and kissing his uncle, said gratefully and reverently:
"You have made me so happy, dear uncle. Thank you very much. May God forgive us both!"
[CHAPTER IX.]
STRONGER THAN DEATH.
SO the brighter days that Millie had talked about in Drury Lane had really come! Their father obtained work at Moultonsea, where he went to and fro by rail morning and evening. Then their old cottage in the village street happening to be empty ("It seemed to be on purpose," Phil said), they moved into it before Christmas. Little by little, too, they got back the greater part of their old furniture, for the neighbours who had purchased it, offered it to them at the same prices which they themselves had paid for it, while those who could afford to be generous came and begged them to accept as a gift a chair, a bedstead, or table, as the case might be.
There was hardly any perceptible change in Phil. If anything, he grew weaker, but they fondly hoped it was only the winter weather that tried him. Millie was his devoted nurse during the day; her father taking her place at night. If he was well enough, and the weather was favourable, she would wheel him out in his chair, but that happened less and less frequently as time advanced. It hurt his back, he said. What he liked best was to be carried in his father's arms around their little garden on a Sunday afternoon. That never tired him, and he loved to listen to the mellow pealing of the bells, as they rang the villagers to church.
"What a big, old baby I am, father!" he would say saucily.
To which, with a loving smile, his father would answer: