Rufus Hutton, you see, was a man of the world, and could be false “on occasion.” John Rosedew could never have made that speech on the back of detected falsehood. Away went Polly, like a gale of wind; and Rufus (who was no rogue by nature, only by the force of circumstances, and then could never keep to it), he going along twenty miles an hour, set his teeth to the breeze, which came down the funnel of his cigar as down a steamerʼs chimney, stuck his calves well into Pollyʼs sides, and felt himself a happy man, going at a rocketʼs speed, to a home of happiness. All of us who have a home (and unless we leave our heart there, whenever we go away, we have no home at all), all of us who have a hole in this shifting sandy world—the sand as of an hour–glass—but whence we have spun such a rope as the devil can neither make nor break—I mean to say, we, all who love, without any hems, and haws, and rubbish, those who are only our future tense (formed from the present by adding “so”)—all of us who are lucky enough, I believe we may say good enough, to want no temporal augment from the prefix of society, only to cling upon the tree to the second aorist of our children, wherein the root of the man lurks, the grand indefinite so anomalous; all these fellows, if they can anyhow understand this sentence, will be glad to hear that Rufus Hutton had a jolly ride. Rosa waited at the gate; why do his mareʼs shoes linger? Rosa ran in, and ran out again, and was sure that she heard something pelting down the hill much too fast, for her sake! but who could blame him when he knew he was coming home at last? Then Rosa snapped poor Jonahʼs head off, for being too thick to hear it. Meanwhile, a mighty senate was held at Kettledrum Hall, Mrs. Corklemore herself taking the curule chair. After a glimpse of natural life, and the love of man and woman, we want no love of money; so we lift our laps (like the Roman envoy) and shake out war with the whole of them. Fools who think that life needs gilding—life, whose flowing blood contains every metal but gold and silver—because they clog and poison it! Blessed is he who earns his money, and spends it all on a Saturday. He looks forward to it throughout the week; and the beacon of life is hope, even as God is its pole–star. CHAPTER II.