To which Mr.Hare gave his hearty _Euge_; adding that if his own curacy happened then to be vacant, he should be well pleased to have Sterling in that office.

So they parted.
"A year or two" of serious reflection "in some good German University," or anywhere in the world, might have thrown much elucidation upon these confused strugglings and purposings of Sterling's, and probably have spared him some confusion in his subsequent life.

But the talent of waiting was, of all others, the one he wanted most.

Impetuous velocity, all-hoping headlong alacrity, what we must call rashness and impatience, characterized him in most of his important and unimportant procedures; from the purpose to the execution there was usually but one big leap with him.

A few months after Mr.Hare was gone, Sterling wrote that his purposes were a little changed by the late meeting at Bonn; that he now longed to enter the Church straightway: that if the Herstmonceux Curacy was still vacant, and the Rector's kind thought towards him still held, he would instantly endeavor to qualify himself for that office.
Answer being in the affirmative on both heads, Sterling returned to England; took orders,--"ordained deacon at Chichester on Trinity Sunday in 1834" (he never became technically priest):--and so, having fitted himself and family with a reasonable house, in one of those leafy lanes in quiet Herstmonceux, on the edge of Pevensey Level, he commenced the duties of his Curacy.
The bereaved young lady has _taken_ the veil, then! Even so.