It was all over--his resistance and his notion of being able to resist, his hopes and all the foundation for them, his fond dreams and thoughts (so fallacious and so foolish) of independence, of settling matters for himself, of keeping the little house as a sort of monument to the old people to whom it belonged. Could anything be more vain than these visions? It was all settled now, and not a child in the village had less to do with it than he. The furniture was to be sold, the house itself to be let if it could not be disposed of. The gardener and Sarah had received their dismissal. They remained only till ‘the family’ left, which was an event now fixed for next day. In short, every part of John’s little world had crumbled under him. Himself was of no account in all the changes that had been determined upon. They were all quite reasonable, perhaps necessary, and his childish intention had been silly as well as vain. He understood that now; but how painful was the discovery? It left him aching body and soul, not only with the thought of what was to come, but with the smarting sensation of pain and shame, that overwhelming sense of having formed ludicrous intentions impossible to carry out, which is so terrible to youth. He felt himself blush from head to foot when he thought how foolish he had been, and how impossible that which he had supposed the most natural thing in the world. For the sting of it was that he saw the impossibility, and how childish it was to suppose that he could have done it, and the futility of everything he had imagined and planned. It was natural that she should take all the steps she had done--calmly, without the silly sentiment into which he had fallen. She was acting only as reasonable people should act--but he, he had been going on like a foolish boy.