John stood by gravely shaking his head, his mouth a little open, his moustache drooping. “Thingth are always wanted,” he said solemnly. “Write to _me_.” Mary recounted this little incident to her husband after they had established themselves comfortably in the railway carriage, and had waved their hands for the last time to the people assembled to bid them good-bye, and were dashing along over the country, a family detached and set afloat in the world, a new race setting forth to conquer the earth. A sort of atmosphere of excitement, of elation, of novelty, and enthusiasm was about them, so that they were a little sorry for the homelier people going about quietly, looking out of the windows of calm country houses, standing at cottage doors, all in their ordinary way. To be so far out of their ordinary way, in such a rush and whirl of unaccustomed sensation, seemed to them a superiority--an elevation such as the dwellers in every-day life might well be envious of. Mary told her husband about John, and they both laughed, in their superiority of happiness, at the awkward good fellow who had thought it right to make this overture, which it was so little likely they would ever take advantage of. Mary herself laughed, she could not help it: but she said “Don’t laugh at him, Harry; it was a kind thought, a little out of place, perhaps, but we must not judge him by ordinary rules. He may be silly, but he is so kind. Don’t! It hurts me when you laugh at John;” but she laughed herself just a little, softly, under her breath. “I am not laughing at him,” said the curate; “he is by far the best of the lot, and worth a dozen of that Percy you all make such a fuss about; but I don’t think you’ll write to him to ask his help--at least, I hope not.” “Harry!” she said with indignation, as if the mere idea of wanting help at all, she his wife, and he the senior curate of St. John’s, Radcliffe, was a suggestion so ridiculous as almost to be an offence. And in this spirit they pursued their happy journey across England to the other side of the kingdom, with, not their flocks and herds, like the patriarchs, but what comes to the same thing, their furniture and their boxes and their children, to settle down in the well-watered plain, in the land flowing with milk and honey, in which their career and their surroundings were to be all their own.