ade more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance that the
councils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming most brilliantly, on a few
rare occasions assisted) respecting the road to be selected were, after
all, in nowise assisted by his investigations. For, he had connected
this interest with this road, or that interest with the other, but could
deduce no reason from it for giving any road the preference.
Consequently, when the last council was holden, that part of the business
stood, in the end, exactly where it had stood in the beginning.

"But, sir," remarked Phoebe, "we have only six roads after all. Is the
seventh road dumb?"

"The seventh road? Oh!" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his chin. "That
is the road I took, you know, when I went to get your little present.
That is _its_ story. Phoebe."

"Would you mind taking that road again, sir?" she asked with hesitation.

"Not in the least; it is a great high-road after all."

"I should like you to take it," returned Phoebe with a persuasive smile,
"for the love of that little present which must ever be so dear to me. I
should like you to take it, because that road can never be again like any
other road to me. I should like you to take it, in remembrance of your
having done me so much good: of your having made me so much happier! If
you leave me by the road you travelled when you went to do me this great
kindness," sounding a faint chord as she spoke, "I shall feel, lying here
watching at my window, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end, and
bring you back some day."

"It shall be done, my dear; it shall be done."

So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Somewhere, and his
destination was the great ingenious town.

He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was the eighteenth of
December when he left it. "High time," he reflected, as he seated
himself in the train, "that I started in earnest! Only one clear day
remains between me and the day I am running away from. I'll push onward
for the hill-country to-morrow. I'll go to Wales."

It was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeniable
advantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his senses
from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wild seashore, and
rugged roads. And yet he scarcely made them out as distinctly as he
could have wished. Whether the poor girl, in spite of her new resource,
her music, would have any feeling of loneliness