to be with them.

There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed
each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the
long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and
receding
across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of
aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high
horizon,
and stood outlined for a moment, a tiny cloud of whiteness
against
the tender blue, before it vanished over the hill.

For a long time he sat there watching and wondering. It was
a very different world from that in which his mansion on the
Avenue
was built; and it looked strange to him, but most real--as real
as
anything he had ever seen. Presently he felt a strong desire
to know what country it was and where the people were going.
He had a faint premonition of what it must be, but he wished to
be sure.
So he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down
through
the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group
of people.
One of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand. It was an
old man,
under whose white beard and brows John Weightman thought he saw
a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for