, should be paid to his remains.

_Thirty-two_

Meanwhile the colonel, forgetting his own hurt, hovered, with several
physicians, among them Doctor Price, around the bedside of his child.
The slight cut upon the head, the physicians declared, was not, of
itself, sufficient to account for the rapid sinking which set in
shortly after the boy's removal to the house. There had evidently been
some internal injury, the nature of which could not be ascertained.
Phil remained unconscious for several hours, but toward the end of the
day opened his blue eyes and fixed them upon his father, who was
sitting by the bedside.

"Papa," he said, "am I going to die?"

"No, no, Phil," said his father hopefully. "You are going to get well
in a few days, I hope."

Phil was silent for a moment, and looked around him curiously. He gave
no sign of being in pain.

"Is Miss Laura here?"

"Yes, Phil, she's in the next room, and will be here in a moment."

At that instant Miss Laura came in and kissed him. The caress gave him
pleasure, and he smiled sweetly in return.

"Papa, was Uncle Peter hurt?"

"Yes, Phil."

"Where is he, papa? Was he hurt badly?"

"He is lying in another room, Phil, but he is not in any pain."

"Papa," said Phil, after a pause, "if I should die, and if Uncle Peter
should die, you'll remember your promise and bury him near me, won't
you, dear?"

"Yes, Phil," he said, "but you are not going to die!"

But Phil died, dozing off into a peaceful sleep in which he passed
quietly away with a smile upon his face.

It required all the father's fortitude to sustain the blow, with the
added agony of self-reproach that he himself had been unwittingly the
cause of it. Had he not sent old Peter into the house, the child would
not have been left alone. Had he kept his eye upon Phil until Peter's
return the child would not have strayed away. He had neglected his
child, while the bruised and broken old black man in the room below
had given his life to save him. He could do nothing now to show the
child his love or Peter his gratitude, and the old man had neither
wife nor child in whom the colonel's bounty might find an object. But
he would do what he could. He would lay his child's body in the old
family lot in the cemetery, among the bones of his ancestors, and
there too, close at hand, old Peter should have honourable sepulture.
It was his due, and would be the fulfilment of little Phil's last
request.

The c