I would, rather than you should
have gone and done it."

"Fortunately there was no time," George said with a smile. "Don't you
fret yourself, Bill; one can get on well enough without a foot, and it
didn't hurt me a bit coming off. No, nor the squeeze either, not
regular hurting; it was just a sort of scrunch, and then I didn't feel
anything more. Why, I have often hurt myself ten times as much at play
and thought nothing of it. I expect it looked much worse to you than
it felt to me."

"We will talk of it another time," Bill said huskily. "Your mother
said I wasn't to talk, and I wasn't to let you talk, but just to sit
down here quiet, and you are to try to go off to sleep." So saying he
sat down by the bedside. George asked one or two more questions, but
Bill only shook his head. Presently George closed his eyes, and a
short time afterwards his quiet regular breathing showed that he was
asleep.

The next six weeks passed pleasantly enough to George. Every day
hampers containing flowers and various niceties in the way of food
were sent down by Mr. Penrose, and that gentleman himself very
frequently called in for a chat with him. As soon as the wound had
healed an instrument-maker came down from town to measure him for an
artificial foot, but before he was able to wear this he could get
about on crutches.

The first day that he was downstairs Mr. Penrose brought Nelly down
to see him. The child looked pale and awed as he came in.

"My little girl has asked me to thank you for her, George," Mr.
Penrose said as she advanced timidly and placed her hand in his. "I
have not said much to you about my own feelings and I won't say much
about hers; but you can understand what we both feel. Why, my boy, it
was a good Providence, indeed, which threw you in my way! I thought so
when you saved the mill from destruction. I feel it tenfold more now
that you have saved my child. The ways of God are, indeed, strange.
Who would have thought that all this could have sprung from that boy
snatching the locket from Helen as we came out of the theater! And now
about the future, George. I owe you a great debt, infinitely greater
than I can ever repay; but what I can do I will. In the future I shall
regard you as my son, and I hope that you will look to me as to a
father. I have been talking to your mother, and she says that she
thinks your tastes lie altogether in the direction of engineering. Is
that so?"

"Yes, sir. I have often tho