knowing when he should see him again. John intended to read through all
the vacations until he got his degree. He might indeed have come down for
a day or two at Christmas, but with his very slender resources even so
short a pleasure trip was not to be thought of lightly. It was therefore
to be a long separation, so long to look forward to that when John saw
the shabby little box which contained, all his worldly goods put up into
the back of the vicar's dogcart, and stood at last in the hall, saying
good-bye, he felt as though he was being thrust out into the world never
to return again; his heart seemed to rise in his throat, the tears stood
in his eyes and he could hardly speak a word. Even then he thought of
that day when he had waked up the sleepy Muggins to take away the
beautiful unknown lady. He felt he must be quick about his leave-taking,
or he would break down.

"You have been very good to me. I--I shall never forget it," he murmured
as he shook hands with Mrs. Ambrose. "And you, too, sir--" he added
turning to the vicar. But the old clergyman cut him short, being himself
rather uncertain about the throat.

"Good-bye, my lad. God bless you. We shall hear of you soon--showing them
what you can do with your Alcaics--Good-bye."

So John got into the dogcart and was driven off by the ancient
Reynolds--past the "Duke's Head," past the "Feathers," past the
churchyard and the croft--the "croat," they called it in
Billingsfield--and on by the windmill on the heath, a hideous bit of
grassless common euphemistically so named, and so out to the high-road
towards the railway station, feeling very miserable indeed. It is a
curious fact, too, in the history of his psychology that in proportion as
he got farther from the vicarage he thought more and more of his old