I tried to be cheerful myself, but he kept repeating, "It is only natural you should be glad to go, yet it is very rough upon us." In vain I assured him I was not at all glad to go,--very, very sorry, in fact: all he would say was, "To England, home and beauty, in course any one would be pleased to return." I can't tell you what he meant, and he had no voice to waste on explanations; I only give poor dear Jim's valedictory sentences as they fell from his white and trembling lips.
Very different was Ned Palmer, the most diminutive and wiry of hill shepherds, with a tongue which seemed never tired, and a good humoured smile for every one.

Ned used to try my gravity sorely by stepping up to me half a dozen times during the service, to find his place for him in his Prayer-book, and always saying aloud, "Thank you kindly, m'm.".