within reasonable distance of London, and to these the holiday was an awkward interval when they had to provide food out of their small wages and, with the whole day on their hands, had nothing to spend.  Philip had not been out of London since his visit to Brighton with Mildred, now two years before, and he longed for fresh air and the silence of the sea.  He thought of it with such a passionate desire, all through May and June, that, when at length the time came for him to go, he was listless.

On his last evening, when he talked with the buyer of one or two jobs he had to leave over, Mr. Sampson suddenly said to him: 

“What wages have you been getting?”

“Six shillings.”

“I don’t think it’s enough.  I’ll see that you’re put up to twelve when you come back.”

“Thank you very much,” smiled Philip.  “I’m beginning to want some new clothes badly.”

“If you stick to your work and don’t go larking about with the girls like what some of them do, I’ll look after you, Carey.  Mind you, you’ve got a lot to learn, but you’re promising, I’ll say that for you, you’re promising, and I’ll see that you get a pound a week as soon as you deserve it.”

Philip wondered how long he would have to wait for that.  Two years?

He was startled at the change in his uncle.  When last he had seen him he was a stout man, who held himself upright, clean-shaven, with a round, sensual face; but he had fallen in strangely, his skin was yellow; there were great bags under the eyes, and he was bent and old.  He had grown a beard during his last illness, and he walked very slowly.

“I’m not at my best today,” he said when Philip, having just arrived, was sitting with him in the dining-room.  “The heat upsets me.”

Philip, asking after the affairs of the parish, looked at him and wondered how much longer he could last.  A hot summer would finish him; Philip noticed how thin his hands were; they trembled.  It meant so much to Philip.  If he died that summer he could go back to the hospital at the beginning of the winter session; his heart leaped at the thought of returning no more to Lynn’s.  At dinner the Vicar sat humped up on his chair, and the housekeeper who had been with him since his wife’s death said: 

“Shall Mr. Philip carve, sir?”

The old man, who had been about to do so from disinclination to confess his weakness, seemed glad at the first suggestion to relinquish the attempt.

“You’ve got a very good appetite,” said Philip.

“Oh yes, I always eat well.  But I’m thinner than when you were here last.  I’m glad to be thinner, I didn’t like being so fat.  Dr. Wigram thinks I’m all the better for being thinner than I was.”

When dinner was over the housekeeper brought him some medicine.

“Show the prescription to Master Philip,” he said.  “He’s a doctor too.  I’d like him to see that he thinks it’s all right.  I told Dr. Wigram that now you’re studying to be a doctor he ought to make a reduction in his charges.  It’s dreadful the bills I’ve had to pay.  He came every day for two months, and he charges five shillings a visit.  It’s a lot of money, isn’t it?  He comes twice a week still.  I’m going to tell him he needn’t come any more.  I’ll send for him if I want him.”