Astonished and almost frightened by what she had heard, Lillie crept back without having been seen, and went to her aunt’s room to tell her of her surprise, leaving the door ajar that she, too, might hear the sounds that Philip was making, unconscious that they fell upon any ear but his own. They returned together to the drawing-room. It was some time before Philip noticed their presence; when he did so he stopped playing at once, his face crimson with embarrassment.
“My dear boy,” said Aunt Delia, putting her arm about him in a motherly way she had, “I did not know the old piano had so much music in it. You must have a teacher, my Philip.”
“Oh, Aunt Delia,” cried the boy, with shining eyes, “do you suppose I should ever be able to learn to play like my cousin Marion?”
Aunt Delia smiled at the boy’s simplicity.
“My dear,” she said, “you will undoubtedly learn to play far better than your cousin, but first you must grow quite well and strong. What you need now is to play and romp in the open air. Let us make an agreement. Peter has not time to attend properly to my flower-garden. If you will dig all the weeds out of my tulip-bed, I will see if I cannot persuade your uncle to have you taught to play the piano.”
Philip’s answer was an ecstatic hug which left the dear old lady quite out of breath, and from that day the boy spent all his spare time hoeing and digging in the old-fashioned garden behind the house; and very soon the pale, slender, sickly-looking lad was transformed into a brown, sturdy, long-legged boy whose happy laugh mingled with the merry voices of his cousins as they played happily together in the old garden, while Aunt Delia, watching them unobserved from an upper window, would follow him lovingly with her eyes, saying: “How wonderfully like his father the boy grows!”
Chapter IX
Trials and Pleasures
BEFORE Philip had fully recovered his health and strength, his uncle’s family had left the rectory and returned to their city home. The house was quiet enough then, and Aunt Delia feared that the boy would pine for his young cousins; but it hardly seemed as if he missed them. Although as long as they had stayed they had been objects of intense interest and admiration to him, it was almost a relief to have them go. The secret of this was the consciousness of his own ignorance which had been forced upon Philip by his cousin Marion’s silly desire to exhibit her own superior wisdom and accomplishments. The foolish girl had shown in so many ways her contempt for her cousin’s lack of education that the boy was quite unhappy in her presence, and the sight of a book caused him the most painful embarrassment. Aunt Delia, too kind herself to think her niece capable of wounding her cousin’s feelings, was but dimly conscious of the poor boy’s trouble of mind; indeed, she had been so anxious that Philip’s health should be firmly established that she had purposely delayed making any suggestions as to his settling down to study, and the rector had quite agreed to the wisdom of this delay. It was not until after the Nortons had gone that the dear old lady discovered the trouble which was preying on the mind of the sensitive child, whom she already loved as though he had been her own son.