is cloak round me--"you must both be very
still. You will likely have to spend the night here. Jem shall bring
you a light and supper. You will make yourself easy, Abel Fletcher?"

"Ay." It was strange to see how decidedly, yet respectfully, John
spoke, and how quietly my father answered.

"And, Phineas"--he put his arm round my shoulder in his old way--"you
will take care of yourself. Are you any stronger than you used to be?"

I clasped his hand without reply. My heart melted to hear that tender
accent, so familiar once. All was happening for the best, if it only
gave me back David.

"Now good-bye--I must be off."

"Whither?" said my father, rousing himself.

"To try and save the house and the tan-yard--I fear we must give up the
mill. No, don't hold me, Phineas. I run no risk: everybody knows me.
Besides, I am young. There! see after your father. I shall come back
in good time."

He grasped my hands warmly--then unloosed them; and I heard his step
descending the staircase. The room seemed to darken when he went away.

The evening passed very slowly. My father, exhausted with pain, lay on
the bed and dozed. I sat watching the sky over the housetops, which
met in the old angles, with the same blue peeps between. I half forgot
all the day's events--it seemed but two weeks, instead of two years
ago, that John and I had sat in this attic-window, conning our
Shakspeare for the first time.

Ere twilight I examined John's room. It was a good deal changed; the
furniture was improved; a score of ingenious little contrivances made
the tiny attic into a cosy bed-chamber. One corner was full of
shelves, laden with books, chiefly of a scientific and practical
nature. John's taste did not lead him into the current literature of
the day: Cowper, Akenside, and Peter Pindar were alike indifferent to
him. I found among his books no poet but Shakspeare.

He evidently still practised his old mechanical arts. There was lying
in the window a telescope--the cylinder made of pasteboard--into which
the lenses were ingeniously fitted. A rough telescope-stand, of common
deal, stood on the ledge of the roof, from which the field of view must
have been satisfactory enough to the young astronomer. Other fragments
of skilful handiwork, chiefly meant for machinery on a Lilliputian
scale, were strewn about the floor; and on a chair, just as he had left
it that morning, stood a loom, very small in size, but perfect i