n's steadfast eyes--"remember, thee hast in some
measure taken that lad's place. May God deal with thee as thou dealest
with my son Phineas--my only son!"

"Amen!" was the solemn answer.

And God, who sees us both now--ay, NOW! and, perhaps, not so far apart
as some may deem--He knows whether or no John Halifax kept that vow.

CHAPTER IX

"Well done, Phineas--to walk round the garden without once resting! now
I call that grand, after an individual has been ill a month. However,
you must calm your superabundant energies, and be quiet."

I was not unwilling, for I still felt very weak. But sickness did not
now take that heavy, overpowering grip of me, mind and body, that it
once used to do. It never did when John was by. He gave me strength,
mentally and physically. He was life and health to me, with his brave
cheerfulness--his way of turning all minor troubles into pleasantries,
till they seemed to break and vanish away, sparkling, like the foam on
the top of the wave. Yet, all the while one knew well that he could
meet any great evil as gallantly as a good ship meets a heavy
sea--breasting it, plunging through it, or riding over it, as only a
good ship can.

When I recovered--just a month after the bread-riot, and that month was
a great triumph to John's kind care--I felt that if I always had him
beside me I should never be ill any more; I said as much, in a laughing
sort of way.

"Very well; I shall keep you to that bargain. Now, sit down; listen to
the newspaper, and improve your mind as to what the world is doing. It
ought to be doing something, with the new century it began this year.
Did it not seem very odd at first to have to write '1800'?"

"John, what a capital hand you write now!"

"Do I! That's somebody's credit. Do you remember my first lesson on
the top of the Mythe?"

"I wonder what has become of those two gentlemen?"

"Oh! did you never hear? Young Mr. Brithwood is the 'squire now. He
married, last month, Lady Somebody Something, a fine lady from abroad."

"And Mr. March--what of him?"

"I haven't the least idea. Come now, shall I read the paper?"

He read well, and I liked to listen to him. It was, I remember,
something about "the spacious new quadrangles, to be called Russell and
Tavistock Squares, with elegantly laid out nursery-grounds adjoining."

"It must be a fine place, London."

"Ay; I should like to see it. Your father says, perhaps he shall have
to send me