"
"Well," said he, "choose your town, and my offer
still holds good."
We hunted out an atlas, and laid the map of England
before us on the table. Cities and villages lay beneath
me as thick as freckles, and yet there was nothing to
lead me to choose one rather than another.
"I think it should be some place large enough to give
you plenty of room for expansion," said he.
"Not too near London," added Mrs. Cullingworth.
"And, above all, a place where I know nobody," said
I. "I can rough it by myself, but I can't keep up
appearances before visitors."
"What do you say to Stockwell?" said
Cullingworth, putting the amber of his pipe upon a
town within thirty miles of Bradfield.
I had hardly heard of the place, but I raised my
glass. "Well, here's to Stockwell!" I cried; "I shall go
there to-morrow morning and prospect." We all drank the
toast (as you will do at Lowell when you read this); and
so it is arranged, and you may rely upon it that I shall
give you a full and particular account of the result.
X.
1 CADOGAN TERRACE, BIRCHESPOOL, i 21st May, 1882.
My dear old chap, things have been happening, and I
must tell you all about it. Sympathy is a strange thing;
for though I never see you, the mere fact that you over
there in New England are keenly interested in what I am
doing and thinking, makes my own life in old England very
much more interesting to me.
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