‘You love Phillis, then?’ said I.

’Love her!  Yes, that I do.  Who could help it, seeing her as I have done?  Her character as unusual and rare as her beauty!  God bless her!  God keep her in her high tranquillity, her pure innocence.—­Two years!  It is a long time.—­But she lives in such seclusion, almost like the sleeping beauty, Paul,’—­(he was smiling now, though a minute before I had thought him on the verge of tears,) —­’but I shall come back like a prince from Canada, and waken her to my love.  I can’t help hoping that it won’t be difficult, eh, Paul?’

This touch of coxcombry displeased me a little, and I made no answer.  He went on, half apologetically,—­

’You see, the salary they offer me is large; and beside that, this experience will give me a name which will entitle me to expect a still larger in any future undertaking.’

‘That won’t influence Phillis.’

’No! but it will make me more eligible in the eyes of her father and mother.’  I made no answer.

‘You give me your best wishes, Paul,’ said he, almost pleading.  ‘You would like me for a cousin?’

I heard the scream and whistle of the engine ready down at the sheds.

‘Ay, that I should,’ I replied, suddenly softened towards my friend now that he was going away.  ’I wish you were to be married to-morrow, and I were to be best man.’

’Thank you, lad.  Now for this cursed portmanteau (how the minister would be shocked); but it is heavy!’ and off we sped into the darkness.  He only just caught the night train at Eltham, and I slept, desolately enough, at my old lodgings at Miss Dawsons’, for that night.  Of course the next few days I was busier than ever, doing both his work and my own.  Then came a letter from him, very short and affectionate.  He was going out in the Saturday steamer, as he had more than half expected; and by the following Monday the man who was to succeed him would be down at Eltham.  There was a P.S., with only these words:—­ ’My nosegay goes with me to Canada, but I do not need it to remind me of Hope Farm.’

Saturday came; but it was very late before I could go out to the farm.  It was a frosty night, the stars shone clear above me, and the road was crisping beneath my feet.  They must have heard my footsteps before I got up to the house.  They were sitting at their usual employments in the house-place when I went in.  Phillis’s eyes went beyond me in their look of welcome, and then fell in quiet disappointment on her work.

‘And where’s Mr Holdsworth?’ asked cousin Holman, in a minute or two.  ’I hope his cold is not worse,—­I did not like his short cough.’

I laughed awkwardly; for I felt that I was the bearer of unpleasant news.

’His cold had need be better—­for he’s gone—­gone away to Canada!’

I purposely looked away from Phillis, as I thus abruptly told my news.

‘To Canada!’ said the minister.