We had neither of us left any near relations behind us, and already we began to think that we were cut off for ever from old acquaintances and associations, and were beginning to be resigned to it.
Let us return to where he and I were standing alone in the forest.

I dismounted to set right some strap or another, and, instead of getting on my horse again at once, stood leaning against him, looking at the prospect, glad to ease my legs for a time, for they were cramped with many hours' riding.
Stockbridge sat in his saddle immoveable and silent as a statue, and when I looked in his face I saw that his heart had travelled further than his eye could reach, and that he was looking far beyond the horizon that bounded his earthly vision, away to the pleasant old home which was home to us no longer.
"Jim," said I, "I wonder what is going on at Drumston now ?" "I wonder," he said softly.
A pause.
Below us, in the valley, a mob of jackasses were shouting and laughing uproariously, and a magpie was chanting his noble vesper hymn from a lofty tree.
"Jim," I began again, "do you ever think of poor little Mary now ?" "Yes, old boy, I do," he replied; "I can't help it; I was thinking of her then--I am always thinking of her, and, what's more, I always shall be.

Don't think me a fool, old friend, but I love that girl as well now as ever I did.

I wonder if she has married that fellow Hawker ?" "I fear there is but little doubt of it," I said; "try to forget her, James.

Get in a rage with her, and be proud about it; you'll make all your life unhappy if you don't." He laughed.