He himself was gone, and nothing remained but to bury his body decently beside his wife's, in the old churchyard, and to shed some tears, at the thought that never, by the fireside, or in the solemn old church, they should hear that kindly voice again.
And then came the disturbance of household gods, and the rupture of life-old associations.

And although they were begged by the new comer not to hurry or incommode themselves, yet they too wished to be gone from the house whence everything they loved had departed.
Their kind true friend Frank was presented with the living, and they accepted Mrs.Buckley's invitation to stay at their house till they should have decided what to do.

It was two months yet before the Major intended to sail, and long before those two months were past, Mary and Miss Thornton had determined that they would not rend asunder the last ties they had this side of the grave, but would cast in their lot with the others, and cross the weary sea with them towards a more hopeful land.
One more scene, and we have done with the Old World for many a year.
Some of these our friends will never see it more, and those who do will come back with new thoughts and associations, as strangers to a strange land.

Only those who have done so know how much effort it takes to say, "I will go away to a land where none know me or care for me, and leave for ever all that I know and love." And few know the feeling which comes upon all men after it is done,--the feeling of isolation, almost of terror, at having gone so far out of the bounds of ordinary life; the feeling of self-distrust and cowardice at being alone and friendless in the world, like a child in the dark.
* * * * * A golden summer's evening is fading into a soft cloudless summer's night, and Doctor Mulhaus stands upon Mount Edgecombe, looking across the trees, across the glassy harbour, over the tall men-of-war, out beyond the silver line of surf on the breakwater, to where a tall ship is rapidly spreading her white wings and speeding away each moment more rapidly for a fair wind, towards the south-west.

He watches it growing more dim minute by minute in distance and in darkness, till he can see no longer; then brushing a tear from his eye he says aloud:-- "There goes my English microcosm, all my new English friends with whom I was going to pass the rest of my life, peaceful and contented, as a village surgeon.