"Dull and monotonous!" he exclaimed. "Why, I have been preaching to him
all the morning that he should be delighted to come down into the
quietude of the country, as a sort of moral bath after the insensate
racket of that London whirl. But no one ever knows how well off he is,"
he continued, as they walked along between the fragrant hawthorn hedges;
"it's the lookers-on who know. Good gracious, what wouldn't I give to be
in Linn's place!"

"Do you mean in London, Mr. Mangan?" she asked, and for an instant the
pretty gray eyes looked up.

"Certainly not!" he said, with unnecessary warmth. "I mean here. If I
could run down of a Sunday to a beautiful, quiet, old-fashioned place
like this, and find myself in my own home, among my own people, I wonder
how many Sundays would find me in London? You can't imagine, you have no
idea, what it is to live quite alone in London, with no one to turn to
but club acquaintances; and I think Sunday is the worst day of all,
especially if it is fine weather, and all the people have gone to the
country or the seaside to spend the day with their friends."

"But, Mr. Mangan," said Miss Francie Wright, gently, "I am sure,
whenever you have a Sunday free like that, we should be only too glad if
you would consider us your friends--unless you think the place too
dreadfully tedious, as I'm afraid my cousin finds it."

"It is very kind of you--very," said he. "And I know the old doctor and
Mrs. Moore like to see me well enough, for I bring down their boy to
them; but if I came by myself, I'm afraid they wouldn't care to have an
idling, dawdling fellow like me lounging about the place of a Sunday