Silver Wings by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online

unless you have Him.”
    The young man looked at the girl gravely, intently, all the grin gone now from his pleasant lips.
    “And you think that would make a difference?” he asked seriously.
    “Why, of course,” she said with conviction and a wistfulness about her mouth that made him wonder.
    At last he spoke, gravely. “I have never considered God,” he said, and his eyes were thoughtfully upon hers. “I have never been sure that there was a God!”
    “But you can know there is!” she said gravely. Then after an instant, she said, “It would be nice to know—if anything happened—that you were His—that you were saved!”
    He considered this a moment thoughtfully.
    “Do you think,” he asked, looking deep into her face with an almost tender light in his eyes, “that if I were ‘saved’ as you call it, and I ‘went West,’ that you and I would meet again?”
    “Why, surely!” said Amory, a sudden light like joy in her face. “But there’s more than that, you know,” she added wistfully. “There’s God. We shall be with Him! And that will be—wonderful!”
    This time the silence was long while the young man looked earnestly into her face. At last he spoke again.
    “It seems to be well worth looking into.” His face had a look of purpose in it.
    “Well, I must go!” he said again after a moment, and there was regret in his tone. “I’m sorry. I wish I had known you sooner. Perhaps things would have been different with me. But I’ll not forget what you have said. Now, aren’t you going to give me some keepsake, a sort of mascot—perhaps you would call it talisman—to take with me? How about that little book? Is it something you wouldn’t like to part with?”
    Amory looked down at the Testament sticking out of her trifling little blue pocket.
    “No, I would like you to have it!” she said eagerly. “But it’s not very new. It’s rather worn, I’m afraid.”
    “Then I will go on wearing it,” he said, smiling.
    She held it out to him, and he enfolded her hand and the book in both of his for just an instant’s warm clasp.
    “But you haven’t told me your name, little girl,” he said, looking down into her face earnestly. “I shall need to know your name.”
    “It is Amory,” she answered simply, like a little child. “Amory Lorrimer.”
    “What a beautiful name!” he said. “I like it. Good-bye, Amory, until I come again. And when you think about me, call me Gareth, please. It was the name my mother always called me.”
    Then suddenly, he lifted his right hand from her clasp and stooping, he reverently kissed the tips of her fingers as they lay with the book in his other hand.
    “I’m wearing your book over my heart,” he said smiling, as he straightened up and put the little book inside his jacket. “Perhaps it will bring me good luck. I suppose you would call it ‘safety.’ Think of me, little Amory. Will you promise?”
    “I will pray for you!” she said, with eyes that were shining with unbidden tears.
    He gave her another quick look as if he longed to say something more, then changing his mind, he suddenly sprang into the cockpit and started up his engine.
    The sound of its throbbing brought Amory to her quick senses. Somebody in the house would surely hear that! She must not be seen out here. She suddenly backed to the hedge, which was only a few feet away and where she was at least sheltered for the moment from any curious eyes.
    The great bird was running down the airstrip away from her now, and already the stranger had become a stranger once more. She marveled as she saw it rise from the earth so confidently, like a creature born to air, not earth. She could barely make out the young man’s figure now, he was so far away. It made her feel so small and insignificant standing there against the hedge, her arms outspread to flatten herself as much as possible out of sight.
    He was circling now and coming toward her again, rising as he came, and suddenly he was