“By God’s blessing he will recover,” Lucy said; and strange to say, Squire Fuller felt her verdict to be more assuring than the dictum of the experienced man of skill. Nor did her judgment prove without warrant. Slowly, O how slowly! inch by inch, point by point, the fell destroyer Death was beaten back, and Philip Fuller obtained an even stronger lease of life. When he had so far recovered as to be able to converse, his father would sit for hours by his side, holding his boy’s hand in his own, and drinking in his words as though they were some pleasant music falling on his ear. True, the principal topic was one for which he had never any favour. On the contrary, he had scoffed at and hated it with all the energy of his intellectual pride. But from the lips of his boy, his handsome, manly, high-principled boy--given back to him from an open grave--he heard it with patience, nay, for the speaker’s sake, with unspeakable delight. There was no longer any cloud between these two, and it did not need that the father should unsay the rash words which had half-broken his son’s true and faithful heart. All had vanished like the morning dew, and sire and son were one again in heart and soul. “Father,” said Philip, on one occasion, as he was propped up with pillows, while the squire occupied his seldom vacant seat by his side, “do you know that when I was so weak and ill that I could not speak to you, I knew all that was going on around me; and when I saw your sorrow and your love I did so want to tell you of the sweet peace that filled my soul. My Saviour was so inexpressibly precious to me that I longed to be with Him, and heaven was so near, that I saw its glories, the gleam of angels’ wings, and heard the sound of harpers harping with their harps. I really thought that I was dying, but death had no terrors for me. The one thing that seemed to pull me back to life was my great love to you and Lucy, and the yearning wish, dear father, to tell you of my Saviour’s boundless love. Father, I know that you have learned to look upon religion with doubt, and even with dislike. But now that I have come back--for I feel like one who has taken a long journey--come back from the very borders of the eternal world--come back, after sensibly breathing the very atmosphere of heaven--I tell you that of all the things in this vain shadowy world, Jesus and His love are the only realities; and dreadful as the struggle for life has been, I would gladly go through it all again to see you, my father, bending at the Saviour’s feet.”