home is the time you _are_ in a hurry--when you are thinking of your cup
of tea and the children; and _then_, you know, you have the fall of the
ground all in your favour."

"It's well to have anything in your favour in this place. And so there
are children?"

"A good many," said Mrs. Bedel, with a proud and mysterious smile, and a
nod; "you wouldn't guess how many."

"Not I; I only wonder you did not bring them all."

"That's very good-natured of you, Sir Bale, but all could not come at
_one_ bout; there are--tell him, Martin--ha, ha, ha! there are eleven."

"It must be very cheerful down at the vicarage," said Sir Bale
graciously; and turning to the vicar he added, "But how unequally
blessings are divided! You have eleven, and I not one--that I'm aware
of."

"And then, in that direction straight before you, you have the lake, and
then the fells; and five miles from the foot of the mountain at the
other side, before you reach Fottrell--and that is twenty-five miles by
the road----"

"Dear me! how far apart they are set! My gardener told me this morning
that asparagus grows very thinly in this part of the world. How thinly
clergymen grow also down here--in one sense," he added politely, for the
vicar was stout.