are all in his favor. We are thinking of taking you home, my
boy," he went on, speaking aloud to George. "Are you in any great
pain?"

"I am not in any pain, sir; only I feel awfully cold, and, please,
will someone go on before and tell mother. Bill had better not go; he
would frighten her to death and make her think it was much worse than
it is."

"I will go myself," Mr. Penrose replied. "I will prepare her for your
coming."

"Drink some more of this brandy," the doctor said; "that will warm you
and give you strength for your journey."

There was a stretcher always kept at the works in case of emergency,
and George was placed on this and covered with some rugs. Four of the
men raised it onto their shoulders and set out, Mr. Penrose at once
driving on to prepare Mrs. Andrews.

Bill followed the procession heart-broken. When it neared home he
fell behind and wandered away, not being able to bring himself to
witness the grief of Mrs. Andrews. For hours he wandered about,
sitting down in waste places and crying as if his heart would break.
"If it had been me it wouldn't have mattered," he kept on
exclaiming--"wouldn't have mattered a bit. It wouldn't have been no
odds one way or the other. There, we have always been together in the
shops till this week, and now when we get separated this is what comes
of it. Here am I, walking about all right, and George all crushed up,
and his mother breaking her heart. Why, I would rather a hundred times
that they had smashed me up all over than have gone and hurt George
like that!"

It was dark before he made his way back, and, entering at the back
door, took off his boots, and was about to creep upstairs when Mrs.
Andrews came out of the kitchen.

"Oh, Mrs. Andrews!" he exclaimed, and the tears again burst from him.

"Do not cry, Bill; George is in God's hands, and the doctors have
every hope that he will recover. They are upstairs with him now, with
a nurse whom Mr. Penrose has fetched down from the hospital. He will
have to lose his foot, poor boy," she added with a sob that she could
not repress, "but we should feel very thankful that it is no worse
after such an accident as that. The doctor says that his thick boots
saved him. If it hadn't been for that his whole leg would have been
drawn into the machinery, and then nothing could have saved him. Now I
must go upstairs, as I only came down for some hot water."

"May I go up to him, Mrs. Andrews?"

"I think, my boy, yo