"Both," cried May quickly; "where father and mother and the rest of us are, of course." "But the rest of you are gone, and what if your father and mother were to go too?" "They won't, they never will," insisted May--"not until they come to die. You were not meaning that? Oh! you could not be so cruel, so barbarous," cried May, passionately, "when death is such a long way off, I trust. I know that God is good whether we live or die, and that we shall meet again in a better world. But we are not parted yet, and it is not wrong to pray that we may be a long time together here on this very earth, which we know so well, where we have been so happy. Why, father and mother are not more than middle-aged--mother is not, and if father is older, he is as strong and hale as anybody. Think how he was able to give up his carriage and attend his patients on foot last autumn without feeling it," urged the girl defiantly, in her passion of love and roused dread, which she would not admit. "Certainly," he strove to reassure her, feeling himself a savage for frightening her by his inadvertence, "I never saw anybody wear so well as Dr. Millar. He might be sixty or fifty--he may live to be a hundred--I hope with all my heart he will; and I shall not be astonished if I live to see it. As for Mrs. Millar, it is an insult to call her middle-aged. It is something quite out of keeping to come across her with such a tall daughter as you are." "Yes, I am the tallest of the four," exclaimed May complacently, diverted from the main topic, as he had intended her to be. "And I have not done growing yet; my last summer's frock had to be let down half an inch." "Is it possible? What are we all coming to? You will soon have to stoop to take my arm--if you ever condescend to take my arm." "No," she denied encouragingly, "I am not so far above your shoulder now," measuring the distance with a critical eye. "I shall not grow so much as that comes to. You are bigger than father, and you would not call him a little man; you are hardly even short." "Thanks, you are too kind," said Tom Robinson, with the utmost gravity. "But I say, Miss May, if I were you, I don't think I should do anything to vex and thwart Dr. Millar, though he is so strong and active--long may he continue so. You know how disappointed he would be if you were to close your books." "I am afraid he would," said May reluctantly. "I had almost forgotten all about it for the last minute or two. But don't you think if you spoke to him as I came to ask if you would," she continued unblushingly and coaxingly, "if you were to try and show him--it would be so kind of you--how comfortable and happy I should be with Phyllis Carey in your shop--doing my best--indeed, I should try hard to please you and Miss Franklin, all day--and getting home every evening--he might change his mind?"