04/03/2022 - Cousin Phillis

I rather enjoyed this story. Bit longer than some of the others. Our narrator is a young (and short - this seems to be an issue for him) man, Paul Manning, I think it was, who gets a job as a railway clerk. The industrial age. Anyhow, it turns out close to where he's working, his mother's second cousin or something, is living, and she tells him to go and say hello. Cousin Holman, as she is referred to, married a farmer-minster, and the couple have once child, cousin Phillis, who is a couple of years younger than Paul. She is a total daddy's girl and always learning and studying when she's not working hard on the farm. Paul's manager, Mr Holdsworth, gets sick with a fever, and ends up going to stay with the Holmans to recuporate. One thing leads to another, and Holdsworth and Phillis develop feelings for one another, although they never speak together of how they feel. Holdsworth is then sent to Canada to work on a railway there and proves to be an inconstant lover. Phillis suffers from a broken heart and falls into ill health, on the brink of death. I love the ending though. A bit of down to earth talking from the maid and there is hope. Not to belittle love, but that life goes on, and one should not die over an inconstant lover.