"Take it," said Mrs. Wilkins.

"Take it?"

"Rent it. Hire it. Have it."

"But--do you mean you and I?"

"Yes. Between us. Share. Then it would only cost half, and you
look so--you look exactly as if you wanted it just as much as I do--as
if you ought to have a rest--have something happy happen to you."

"Why, but we don't know each other."

"But just think how well we would if we went away together for a
month! And I've saved for a rainy day--look at it--"

"She is unbalanced," thought Mrs. Arbuthnot; yet she felt
strangely stirred.

"Think of getting away for a whole month--from everything--to
heaven--"

"She shouldn't say things like that," thought Mrs. Arbuthnot. "The
vicar--" Yet she felt strangely stirred. It would indeed be wonderful
to have a rest, a cessation.

Habit, however, steadied her again; and years of intercourse with
the poor made her say, with the slight though sympathetic superiority
of the explainer, "But then, you see, heaven isn't somewhere else. It