From time to time letters reached them from Mrs. Bolton, complaining bitterly of the changes introduced by the new rector, whose customs and opinions constantly clashed with her own. She found herself put on one side, and quietly neglected in all questions concerning the parish; while her influence gradually died away. Again and again she urged her nephew to return to England, promising that she would make him her heir, and procure for him a living as valuable as the one he had resigned. She could not understand that to a man like David Chantrey the calm happy consciousness of days well spent, and the grateful remembrance of a terrible sorrow having been removed, were better than anything earth could give. The old pride he had once felt in his social position and personal popularity could never lift up its crest again. He had gone down to the Valley of Humiliation, and there, to his surprise, he found "that the air was pleasant, and that here a man shall be free from the noise and hurryings of this life, and shall not be let and hindered in his contemplation, as in other places he is apt to be." His laborious simple life suited him, and no entreaties or promises of Mrs. Bolton could recall him to England. Eight tranquil years had passed by when Sophy Chantrey detected in her husband a degree of preoccupation and reticence that had long been unusual to him. For a few days he kept the secret; but at last, just as she began to feel she could bear his reserve no longer he spoke out. "Sophy," he said, "I have had some letters from England." "From Aunt Bolton?" she asked, with a faint undertone of vexation in her voice, for Mrs. Bolton's letters always revived bitter memories in her mind. "No," he answered, holding out to her a large bulky packet; "they are from the bishop--our English bishop, you know--just a few lines; and from the Upton people. It seems that the living is about to be vacant again, for Seymour has had a very good one presented to him in the north; and the parishioners have petitioned the bishop, and petitioned me to accept the charge again. See, here are hundreds of signatures, and the churchwardens tell me every man and woman in the parish would have signed if there had been room. The bishop speaks very kindly about it, too, and they want my answer by the mail going out next week." "And what will you say?" asked Sophy breathlessly. "It is for you to say," he answered; "you must decide. Could you go back happily, Sophy? As for me, I never loved, or shall love, any place like Upton. I dream of it often. Yet I could not return to it at any great cost to you, be sure of that. You must answer the question. We have been very happy together here, all of us; and you and I have been truer Christians than perhaps we could ever have been if we had stayed at home. If you decide to settle here, I for one will never regret it." "Would it be safe for me to go back?" she faltered.