“Why, you see, Miss Winnie, I’m not like other lads. I can’t do no work in the world, I can only lie here and bear the pain. I’d be ashamed to fret and make a fuss over it, when the Lord bore such a deal more for us; but it do make me glad to think as it won’t last always, and that He will call me soon to come to Him, where there won’t be any more pain to bear or any sorrow either.” Something in the words struck a chord of memory in Winifred’s heart. “That’s just what the angel said to me--no pain, and no sorrow,” she said in a dreamy way. “Will He send an angel for you, Phil?” “Sometimes I fancy He will, Miss Winnie; but we don’t know His ways, we can only guess.” “I wonder if He will send my angel,” said the child, still intent on her own thought. “Your angel, Miss Winnie?” “Yes, the one that came the other night to teach me how naughty I had been. Oh, I forgot, you don’t know, I had _such_ a dream a few nights ago, Phil, I think I should like to tell it to you.” So Winifred told her strange dream, and Phil listened with absorbed attention. “That was a nice dream, Miss Winnie,” he said at the close. “You wouldn’t be afraid to go away with the angel, would you?” “Oh no. I don’t think I should be afraid to go with the angel--only I should be afraid, I think, to die.” “But,” said Phil in a slow, thoughtful way, “I think dying just means going away with God’s angel. I don’t think there’s any difference.” Winifred was silent awhile, and then said slowly: “If that’s it, Phil, perhaps I shouldn’t be afraid, for I do love Jesus, and I should like to see Him. Phil, do you think the angel will come for me soon?” Phil looked at the child, his great hollow eyes full of thought, and answered gravely; “I don’t know, Miss Winnie.” “I am not ill like you, am I?” “No, not like me.” “Do you think I am ill?” “Some folks think so, Miss Winnie, by all I hear; but nobody can tell when we shall die except God, and it can’t much matter so long as He knows, can it?” Winnie sat grave and pensive for a long while; but there was no fear in her face, hardly any surprise. Both children were too much in earnest to feel that anything strange had passed between them. “I wonder if that is what they meant. I wonder if I am going _there_ when the swallows go.” CHAPTER VI. WINIFRED’S BROTHERS. Winifred went away from little Phil’s home in a grave and quiet mood; but she did not feel unhappy, and she did not feel afraid. This serious mood lasted for many days, during which the child did a great deal of thinking, although, with the invariable reticence of childhood, she did not speak of her thoughts to those about her.