It might have been thought that one of his friends would have been willing to keep him two days longer, or receive him two days earlier; but no doubt every one knows his own affairs best, and Charles might certainly, "at his age," as he was so fond of saying, be expected to know his.
Anyhow, there he was, leaning against the open window, coffee-cup in hand, lazily watching the dwindling figures of Ralph and Evelyn, with Molly between them, disappearing in the direction of Greenacre church, hard by.
The morning mist still lingered on the land, and veiled the distance with a tender blue.

And up across the silver fields, and across the standing armies of the yellowing corn, the sound of church bells came from Slumberleigh, beyond the river; bringing back to Charles, as to us all, old memories, old hopes, old visions of early youth, long cherished, long forgotten.
The single bell of Greenacre was giving forth a slow, persistent, cracked invitation to true believers, as an appropriate prelude to Mr.
Smith's eloquence; but Charles did not hear its testimony.
He was listening to the Slumberleigh bells.

Was that the first chime or the second?
Suddenly a thought crossed his mind.

Should he go to church?
He smiled at the idea.

It was a little late to think of that.