He told her unhesitatingly that he meant to write the history of the English village from Saxon days to the present time.

Some such plan had lain as a seed in his mind for many years; and now that he had decided, in a flash, to give up his profession, the seed grew in the space of twenty minutes both tall and lusty.

He was surprised himself at the positive way in which he spoke.

It was the same with the question of his cottage.

That had come into existence, too, in an unromantic shape--a square white house standing just off the high road, no doubt, with a neighbor who kept a pig and a dozen squalling children; for these plans were shorn of all romance in his mind, and the pleasure he derived from thinking of them was checked directly it passed a very sober limit.