over
the country in search of building materials and builders, he discovered
trees in distant timber-yards, he brought home specimens of stone, one
in each pocket, to compare and analyse, he went to London to look at
model schools, he drew plans each more neat and beautiful than the
last, he compared builders' estimates, and wrote letters to the National
Society, so as to be able to begin in the spring.

In the meantime he was settling himself, furnishing his new house with
great precision and taste. He would have no assistance in his choice,
either of servants or furniture, but made numerous journeys of
inspection to Whitford, to Malvern, and to London, and these seemed
to make him the more content with Stoneborough. Sir Matthew Fleet had
evidently chilled him, and as he found his own few remaining relations
uncongenial, he became the more ready to find a resting-place in the
gray old town, the scene of his school life, beside the friend of his
youth, and the children of her, for whose sake he had never sought a
home of his own. Though he now and then talked of seeing America, or
of going back to India, in hopes of assisting his beloved mission at
Poonshedagore, these plans were fast dying away, as he formed habits and
attachments, and perceived the sphere of usefulness open to him.

It was a great step when his packages arrived, and his beautiful Indian
curiosities were arranged, making his drawing-room as pretty a room as
could anywhere be seen; in readiness, as he used to tell Ethel, for a
grand tea-party for all the Ladies' Committee, when he should borrow
her and the best silver teapot to preside. Moreover, he had a chemical
apparatus, a telescope, and microscope, of great power, wherewith he
tried experiments that were the height of felicity to Tom and Ethel,
and much interested their father. He made it his business to have full
occupation for himself, with plans, books, or correspondence, so as not
to be a charge on the hands of the May family, with whom he never spent
an evening without special and earnest invitation.

He gave attendance at the hospital on alternate days, as well as taking
off Dr. May's hands such of his gratuitous patients as were not averse
to quit their old doctor, and could believe in a physician in shepherd's
plaid, and Panama hat. Exceedingly sociable, he soon visited every one
far and wide, and went to every sort of party, from the grand dinners
of the "county families," to the tea-dri