“I am sorry too; but I hardly expected anything else. You are, I think, more than one-and-twenty?”
“Two-and-twenty in a few months, sir.”
“Indeed. Well, there ought to be no further delay in the arrangement of your plans for the future. Do you not think so?”
“Yes, sir; and I believe I have made up my mind.”
“What have you resolved to do?”
“Before I go into that, Dr Stansfield, I ought to thank you for the great kindness you have shown me. I should be a pauper, or something like it, but for you.”
“We need not speak of that. Go on.”
“Well, sir, I feel that I ought not to remain longer in England. I have already trespassed too long on your bounty.”
“If that is your reason for leaving England, you had better reconsider it. Whatever might have been the case three years and a half ago, you are not costing me anything now. Your assistant-mastership, small as the salary is, with what you have of your own, is enough to keep you, and you fully earn it. You have, I believe, once or twice expressed a wish to enter holy orders?”
“It has been my wish for some time past, sir.”