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Philip understood suddenly that the old man was fright-
ened of dying. It made Philip a little ashamed, so that he
looked away involuntarily. He was always embarrassed by
the weakness of human nature.
‘He says he thinks you’re much better,’ said Philip.
A gleam of delight came into his uncle’s eyes.
‘I’ve got a wonderful constitution,’ he said. ‘What else did
he say?’ he added suspiciously.
Philip smiled.
‘He said that if you take care of yourself there’s no reason
why you shouldn’t live to be a hundred.’
‘I don’t know that I can expect to do that, but I don’t see
why I shouldn’t see eighty. My mother lived till she was
eighty-four.’
There was a little table by the side of Mr. Carey’s chair,
and on it were a Bible and the large volume of the Common
Prayer from which for so many years he had been accus-
tomed to read to his household. He stretched out now his
shaking hand and took his Bible.
‘Those old patriarchs lived to a jolly good old age, didn’t
they?’ he said, with a queer little laugh in which Philip read
a sort of timid appeal.
The old man clung to life. Yet he believed implicitly all
that his religion taught him. He had no doubt in the im-
mortality of the soul, and he felt that he had conducted
himself well enough, according to his capacities, to make
it very likely that he would go to heaven. In his long career
to how many dying persons must he have administered the
consolations of religion! Perhaps he was like the doctor who

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