You want to keep this boy."
"Are you willing?"
"I would have proposed it, if you had not. He is without friends
and poor. We have enough and to spare. We will adopt him in
place of our lost Walter."
"Thank you, Joseph. It will make me happy. Whatever I do for
him, I will do for my lost darling."
They went back into the room. They found Phil with his cap on
and his fiddle under his arm.
"Where are you going, Philip?" asked the doctor.
"I am going into the street. I thank you for your kindness."
"Would you not rather stay with us?"
Phil looked up, uncertain of his meaning.
"We had a boy once, but he is dead. Will you stay with us and be
our boy?"
Phil looked in the kind faces of the doctor and his wife, and his
face lighted up with joy at the unexpected prospect of such a
home, with people who would be kind to him.
"I will stay," he said. "You are very kind to me."
So our little hero had drifted into a snug harbor. His toils and
privations were over. And for the doctor and his wife it was a
glad day also. On Christmas Day four years before they had lost
a child. On this Christmas, God had sent them another to fill
the void in their hearts.
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