all agreed that they had
had a very pleasant day; and Mr Caldwell said to Mrs Inglis, in his
slow way, that he had enjoyed the drive, and the sight of the fine
country, and the quarries, but he had enjoyed the company of her two
boys a great deal more than all. And you may be sure it was a pleasure
to her to hear him say it.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The breaking-up of what has been a happy home, is not an easy or
pleasant thing under any circumstances. It involves confusion and
fatigue, and a certain amount of pain, even when there is an immediate
prospect of a better one. And when there is no such prospect, it is
very sad, indeed. The happy remembrances that come with the gathering
together, and looking over of the numberless things, useless and
precious, that will, in the course of years, accumulate in a house,
change to regrets and forebodings, and the future seems all the more
gloomy because of the brightness of the past.

There were few things in Mrs Inglis's house of great value; but
everything was precious to her, because of some association it had with
her husband and their past life; and how sad all this was to her, could
never be told.

The children were excited at the prospect of change. Singleton was a
large place to them, which none of them, except David and Violet, had
ever seen. So they amused one another, fancying what they would see and
do, and what sort of a life they should live there, and made a holiday
of the overturning that was taking place. But there was to the mother
no pleasing uncertainty with regard to the kind of life they were to
live in the new home to which they were going. There might be care, and
labour, and loneliness, and, it was possible, things harder to bear;
and, knowing all this, no wonder the thought of the safe and happy days
they were leaving behind them was sometimes more than she could bear.

But, happily, there was not much time for the indulgence of regretful
thoughts. There were too many things to be decided and done for that.
There were not many valuable things in the house, but there were a great
many things of one kind and another. What was to be taken? What to be
left? Where were they all to be bestowed? These questions, and the
perplexities arising out of them, were never for a long time together
suffered to be out of the mother's thoughts; and busy tongues suggesting
plans, and busy hands helping or hindering to carry them out, filled
every pause.