stunned, but it had been a miraculous escape, and had the blow been an
inch nearer her temple it might have been fatal. As it was, the child
was more frightened than hurt, and when a little time after her uncle
took her in his arms with unwonted tenderness, she clung to him and
burst into passionate sobs.

"Take care of me, uncle! That nasty old Goliath! He tried to kill me, he
did! I saw him coming on the top of me. God only just saved me in time,
didn't He?"

When the bruise had been bathed and dressed by nurse, Sir Edward still
kept her on his knee, and after nurse had left the room, and the child
rested her little head on his shoulder in a very subdued frame of mind,
he did, what he had never done yet--stooped over her and kissed her,
saying:

"You have been very near death this afternoon, little one, and I could
ill have spared you."

Milly raised her large dark eyes to his.

"If I had died I should have gone straight up to God, shouldn't I?"

"Yes, you would."

"I should have liked that. I suppose He doesn't want me yet, or He would
have sent for me."

When she came down to her uncle that evening she raised a very sad
little face to his from the opposite side of the table.