"Dull and monotonous!" he exclaimed. "Why, I have been preaching to him all the morning that he should be delighted to come down into the quietude of the country, as a sort of moral bath after the insensate racket of that London whirl. But no one ever knows how well off he is," he continued, as they walked along between the fragrant hawthorn hedges; "it's the lookers-on who know. Good gracious, what wouldn't I give to be in Linn's place!"
"Do you mean in London, Mr. Mangan?" she asked, and for an instant the pretty gray eyes looked up.
"Certainly not!" he said, with unnecessary warmth. "I mean here. If I could run down of a Sunday to a beautiful, quiet, old-fashioned place like this, and find myself in my own home, among my own people, I wonder how many Sundays would find me in London? You can't imagine, you have no idea, what it is to live quite alone in London, with no one to turn to but club acquaintances; and I think Sunday is the worst day of all, especially if it is fine weather, and all the people have gone to the country or the seaside to spend the day with their friends."
"But, Mr. Mangan," said Miss Francie Wright, gently, "I am sure, whenever you have a Sunday free like that, we should be only too glad if you would consider us your friends—unless you think the place too dreadfully tedious, as I'm afraid my cousin finds it."
"It is very kind of you—very," said he. "And I know the old doctor and Mrs. Moore like to see me well enough, for I
bring down their boy to them; but if I came by myself, I'm afraid they wouldn't care to have an idling, dawdling fellow like me lounging about the place of a Sunday afternoon."
"Will you come and try, Mr. Mangan?" said she, quietly. "For Linn's sake alone I know they would be delighted to have you here. And if it is rest and quiet you want, can't we give you the garden and a book?"
"You mustn't put such visions before me," he said. "It's too good to be true. I should be sighing for Paradise all through the week and forgetting my work. And shouldn't I hate to wake up on Monday morning and find myself in London!"
"You might wake up on Monday morning, and find yourself in Winstead," said she, "if you would take Linn's room for the night."
"Ah, no," he said, "it isn't for the like of me to try to take Linn's place in any way whatever. He has always had everything—everything seemed to come to him by natural right; and then he has always been such a capital fellow, so modest and unaffected and generous, that nobody could ever grudge him his good-fortune. Prince Fortunatus he always has been."