home."

"'E-es," agreed Giles, also for the fortieth time, "'e-es I d' 'low it
would, but I ain't had no folk--there! I can scarce mind when I had
any. I never so much as heerd the name o' this 'ere chap what has left
me his fortun'. Never heerd his name--never so much as knowed he were
born."

"Dear to be sure! It seems strange, don't it? And him to leave ye his
money and all. I wonder where ye'll go, Mr. Maine. P'r'aps ye'll go to
Lunnon?"

"To Lunnon?" gasped Giles, his jaw dropping. "What should I go to
Lunnon for?"

"Oh, I don't know--ye can go where ye like, d'ye see. I reckon I'd go
to Lunnon if I was in your shoes."

"Would 'ee?" queried Giles, interested, but still aghast. "Nay now, ye
see, I never was one for travellin'--I've never been so far as
Darchester, not once all the time I were"--he jerked his thumb over
his shoulder--"outside."

"Well, your lodgin' be only took on trial, so to speak, to see how ye
do like it," said another man. "Ye can change it so soon as ye please,
and move here and there just as ye fancy. A fine life--I'd give summat
to be you."

"I never was one for movin' much," said the old man, uneasily. "Nay,
movin' weren't in my line. I did use to work for the same master
pretty near all my life, till I were took bad wi' the rheumatiz.
'E-es, he were a good master to I. I could be fain to see en again,
but he's dead, they tell me, and the family ha' shifted. There bain't
nobody out yonder as I ever had acquaintance wi' in the wold times.
Nay, all 'ull be new, and a bit strange."

"A pleasant change, I should think," a gruff man was beginning--an
unattractive person this, with a week-old beard and a frowning brow,
when an old fellow, who had been sitting disconsolately in the corner
of the room, suddenly struck in:

"I d' 'low, Giles, ye'll be like to miss we when ye're all among
strangers, I d' 'low ye will. 'E-es, ye'll be like to miss we just so
much as us'll miss you."

Giles rolled his eyes towards him with a startled expression, but said
nothing for a moment or two; then he remarked, in a somewhat dolorous
tone:

"I d' 'low I'll miss you, Jim; you and me has sat side by side this
fifteen year--'tis fifteen year, bain't it, since ye come?"

"Ah! fifteen year," agreed Jim. "I'll be the woldest inmate in th'
Union when you do leave."

"'E-es, Jim, thee 'ull be gettin' all the buns and all the baccy now,"
cried one of the others, laughing. "He'll have to stand up and say