'Come here, Aunt Milly,' interrupted Roy; and as Mildred stooped over her boy he looked up in her face with the old Rex-like smile.
'Dr. Heriot says I should never have lived if it had not been for you, Aunt Milly. You have given me back my life, and he has given me Polly, and,' cried the lad, and now his lips quivered, 'God bless you both.'
CHAPTER XXXII
A TALK IN FAIRLIGHT GLEN
O finer far! What work so high as mine,
Interpreter betwixt the world and man,
Nature's ungathered pearls to set and shrine,
The mystery she wraps her in to scan;
Her unsyllabic voices to combine,
And serve her with such love as poets can;
With mortal words, her chant of praise to bind,
Then die, and leave the poem to mankind?'
Jean Ingelow.
Dr. Heriot did not stay long in London; as soon as his mission was accomplished he set his face resolutely homewards.
Christmas was fast approaching, and it was necessary to make arrangements for Roy's removal to Hastings, and after much discussion and a plentiful interchange of letters between the cottage and the vicarage, it was finally settled that Mildred and Richard should remain with the invalid until Olive and Mr. Lambert should take their place.