“Perhaps the lad will be going home,” said the minister, as if to mitigate his wife’s urgency; but for all that, I believe he wanted me to come. Phillis fixed her eyes on me with a wistful expression, hard to resist. But, indeed, I had no thought of resisting. Under my new master I had no hope of a holiday long enough to enable me to go to Birmingham and see my parents with any comfort; and nothing could be pleasanter to me than to find myself at home at my cousins’ for a day or two, then. So it was fixed that we were to meet in Hornby Chapel on Christmas Day, and that I was to accompany them home after service, and if possible to stay over the next day. I was not able to get to chapel till late on the appointed day, and so I took a seat near the door in considerable shame, although it really was not my fault. When the service was ended, I went and stood in the porch to await the coming out of my cousins. Some worthy people belonging to the congregation clustered into a group just where I stood, and exchanged the good wishes of the season. It had just begun to snow, and this occasioned a little delay, and they fell into further conversation. I was not attending to what was not meant for me to hear, till I caught the name of Phillis Holman. And then I listened; where was the harm? “I never saw any one so changed!” “I asked Mrs Holman,” quoth another, “‘Is Phillis well?’ and she just said she had been having a cold which had pulled her down; she did not seem to think anything of it.” “They had best take care of her,” said one of the oldest of the good ladies; “Phillis comes of a family as is not long-lived. Her mother’s sister, Lydia Green, her own aunt as was, died of a decline just when she was about this lass’s age.”