"At least, I shall not be sorry to return to Silverdale.

It has a charm of its own, for while one is occasionally glad to get away from it, one is even more pleased to come home again.

It is a somewhat purposeless life our friends are leading yonder in the cities.

I, of course, mean the women." Barrington nodded.

"And some of the men! Well, we have room here for the many who are going to the devil in the old country for the lack of something worthwhile to do, though I am afraid there is considerably less prospect than I once fancied there would be of their making money." His niece noticed the gravity in his face, and sat thoughtfully silent for several minutes while with the snow hissing beneath it the sleigh dipped into and swung out of a hollow.
Colonel Barrington had founded the Silverdale settlement ten years earlier and gathered about him other men with a grievance who had once served their nation, and the younger sons of English gentlemen who had no inclination for commerce, and found that lack of brains and capital debarred them from either a political or military career.