"Any kind of experience is better than none at all," Joan said, more gently this time. "You can’t think how I dread a life in which nothing happens. I want to have my days crammed full of interests and events. Then I shall learn something; but here--what can one learn? You should just see Auntie Lloyd, and be with her for a quarter of an hour. When you’ve seen her, you’ve seen the whole neighborhood. Oh, how I dislike her!" Her tone of voice expressed so heartily her feelings about Auntie Lloyd that Hieronymus laughed, and Joan laughed too. She had put on her bonnet, and stood ready to go home. The historian stroked Gamboge, put away his papers, and expressed himself inclined to accompany Joan part of the way. He ran to the kitchen to tell Mrs. Benbow that he would not be long gone. "Dinner won’t be ready for quite an hour," she said, "as the butcher came so late. But here is a cup of beef-tea for you. You look rather tired." "I’ve had such a lot of pastry," Hieronymus pleaded, and he turned to Mr. Benbow, who had just come into the kitchen followed by his faithful collie. "I don’t feel as though I could manage the beef-tea." "It’s no use kicking over the traces," said Mr. Benbow, laughing. "I’ve found that out long ago. Sarah is a tyrant." But it was evidently a tyranny which suited him very well, for there seemed to be a kind of settled happiness between the host and hostess of the Green Dragon. Some such thought passed through Hieronymus’ mind as he gulped down the beef-tea, and then started off happily with Joan. "I like both the Benbows," he said to her. "And it is very soothing to be with people who are happy together. I’m cozily housed there, and not at all sorry to have had my plans altered by the gypsies; especially now that I can go on with my work so comfortably. My friends in Wales may wait for me as long as they choose." Joan would have wished to tell him how glad she was that he was going to stay. But she just smiled happily. He was so bright himself that it was impossible not to be happy in his company. "I’m so pleased I have done some dictating to-day," he said, as he plucked an autumn leaf and put it into his buttonhole. "And now I can enjoy myself all the more. You cannot think how I do enjoy the country. These hills are so wonderfully soothing. I never remember being in a place where the hills have given me such a sense of repose as here. Those words constantly recur to me: ’His dews drop mutely on the hill, His cloud above it saileth still, (Though on its slopes men sow and reap). More softly than the dew is shed, Or cloud is floated overhead, He giveth His beloved sleep.’ "It’s all so true, you know, and yonder _are_ the slopes cultivated by men. I am always thinking of these words here. They match with the hills and they match with my feelings." "I have never thought about the hills in that way," she said.