d now it all seems nothing. I do assure
you when I was down there handing out a halfpenny stamp or signing a
two-shilling order, I used to feel large enough to burst with
satisfaction. I felt 'I'm the king o' the castle.'--That was thrown in
my teeth as how I appeared to others. Well, now, I feel like a brock
in a barrel--or not so big as him. Just something small that's got
into the wrong box by accident, and had the lid clapped to on it. I
want room for my elbows, an' scope for my int'lect. I must get the sky
over my head again, and the open roads under my feet. If I stopped
down there much longer, I should go mad."

"Then, my dear, you mustn't stop."

"These last weeks--fairly determined to chuck it--I bin thinking o'
the Colonies as affording advantages to any man who's got capacities
in him; but now this chance comes nearer home, and it lies with you to
say if you'll give me the help required for me to take it."

"Yes," said Mavis, earnestly, "and more glad than words can say to
think I'm able to do so."

Indeed she was delighted. She had been deeply moved by all he told her
about his distaste for the work he used to love, and she recognized
that he had been magnanimous in refraining from reproaches, but rather
implying a purely personal change of ideas as to the cause of
disillusionment and depression. So that, jumping at the opportunity to
prove that she counted his inclinations as higher than mere money, she
would have accepted any scheme, however unpromising; but in fact the
enterprise appeared to her judgment as quite gloriously hopeful. Every
moment increased the charms that it presented; above all, its complete
novelty fascinated, and with surprising quickness she found herself
thinking almost exactly what her husband had thought in regard to
their present existence. It seemed to her too that she was pining for
a larger, freer environment, that this narrow home had become a
permanent prison-house, and that she could never really be contented
until she got away from it; then she thought of Vine-Pits Farm, the
peaceful fields, the lovely woodland, the space, the air, the sunlight
that one would enjoy out there; and then in another moment came the
fear lest all this should prove too good to be true.

"But, Will, however can Mr. Bates be willing to part with such a
splendid business as his for no more than two thousand pounds?"

"Ah, there you show your sense, Mavis." As he said this Dale took his
hand fr