Tingling with delight, he wrote this letter to Kate, though less than an hour parted from her, and went out to post it. He was going upstairs again, steadily, on tiptoe, his head half aside and his face over his shoulder, when Auntie Nan's voice came from the blue room—“Philip!”
He returned with a sheepish look, and a sense, never felt before, of being naked, so to speak. But Auntie Nan did not look at him. She was working a lamb on a sampler, and she reached over the frame to take something out of a drawer and hand it to him. It was a medallion of a young child—a boy, with long fair curls like a girl's, and a face like sunshine.
“Was it father, Auntie?”
“Yes; a French painter who came ashore with Thurlot painted it for grandfather.”
Philip laid it on the table. He was more than ever sure that Auntie Nan had heard something. Such were her tender ways of warning him. He could not be vexed.
“I'm sleepy to-night, Auntie, and you look tired too. You've been waiting up for me again. Now, you really must not. Besides, it limits one's freedom.”
“That's nothing, Philip. You said you would come home after calling on the poor Deemster, and so——”
“He's in a bad way, Auntie. Drink—delirium—such a wreck. Well, good night!”
“Did you read the letters, dear?”
“Oh, yes. Father's letters. Yes, I read them. Good night.”