Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/149

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THE BROTHER WHO FAILED
119

and through. I’ve kept that vow. I am a rich man, and not a dollar of my money is ‘tainted’ money. But I didn’t make it. Robert really made every cent of my money. If it hadn’t been for him I'd have been a poor man to-day, or behind prison bars, as are the other men who went into that deal when I backed out. I’ve got a son here. I hope he’ll be as clever as his Uncle Malcolm; but I hope, still more earnestly, that he'll be as good and honorable a man as his Uncle Robert.”

By this time Robert’s head was bent again, and his face buried in his hands.

“My turn next,” said James. “I haven’t much to say — only this. After mother died I took typhoid fever. Here I was with no one to wait on me. Robert came and nursed me. He was the most faithful, tender, gentle nurse ever a man had. The doctor said Robert saved my life. I don’t suppose any of the rest of us here can say we have saved a life.”

Edith wiped away her tears and sprang up impulsively.

“Years ago,” she said, “there was a poor, ambitious girl who had a voice. She wanted a musical education and her only apparent chance of obtaining it was to get a teacher's certificate and earn money enough to have her voice trained. She studied hard, but her brains, in mathematics at least, weren’t as good as her voice, and the time was short. She