But he had slightly changed the form of his question on this latest morning. "If you could have anything in the world, Theresa, what would it be?" "Oh!" she cried joyously, as though that thing were already hers, and through her mind there paced a fair procession of the desired. But she knew her decision long before it was spoken. "I should have an adventure," she said. "I can't bring you that, I'm afraid." "No--oh no!" "But I might have one myself." He was pleased with the idea. "It wouldn't be the same." "I should tell you about it." She agreed that would be much better than nothing, and with his endless wish to please her he determined that he would have something to tell. His days were passed in alternate fortnights of travelling about the country with samples of ugly things incidental to the dressmaking art, and of conveying the same packages from shop to shop of his native town. He was to be seen, a small shrinking figure, sitting in a cab with a pile of cardboard boxes opposite him, and his face turned to the windows, looking through one and then the other for sights that accorded better with his nature than these boxes, on which, when the cab jolted, he laid a hand lest they should slip. The fortnights at home were more endurable than the others, for he returned at evening to his family and his books, and during the day he had many a fair thing to bring healing to his pain, for always he worked with a queer gnawing at the breast. This was not his rightful work, and he did it ill, and, because he had a great love of beauty and fitness in all things, he suffered. But he was driven on to his mighty, ineffectual efforts by the needs of his wife and little daughters, and as he looked out of the musty cab he would see comforting white clouds floating behind red roofs, the river that found its way into the city's heart, and the tall masts of sailing-ships. But the following fortnight was one of exile and of racket--strange towns full of unfriendly faces, dull hotels with texts on the bedroom walls, and the noise and dirt of trains. A book of verses in each pocket was then his solace, and, two by two, the poets journeyed with him, gilding the grime of cities. Sometimes, as the train carried him on, with, to his imagination, something remorseless and inimical to him in its energy, he would look up from his book and stare longingly at the country which the fast wheels spurned; but on his lonely Saturday and Sunday, when he was stranded in some town, he seldom had energy to obey adventure's whisper, and explore farther than a quiet place where he could read, and write his daily letter to his wife. But, Theresa having a hunger for adventure, her father had decided that at least she should be satisfied by proxy, and he had sought the mountains.