John Halifax had probably not tasted wheaten bread like this for months: it appeared not, he eyed it so ravenously;--then, glancing towards the shut door, his mind seemed to change.

He was a long time before he ate a morsel; when he did so, it was quietly and slowly; looking very thoughtful all the while.
As soon as the rain ceased, we took our way home, down the High Street, towards the Abbey church--he guiding my carriage along in silence.

I wished he would talk, and let me hear again his pleasant Cornish accent.
"How strong you are!" said I, sighing, when, with a sudden pull, he had saved me from being overturned by a horseman riding past--young Mr.
Brithwood of the Mythe House, who never cared where he galloped or whom he hurt--"So tall and so strong." "Am I?
Well, I shall want my strength." "How ?" "To earn my living." He drew up his broad shoulders, and planted on the pavement a firmer foot, as if he knew he had the world before him--would meet it single-handed, and without fear.
"What have you worked at lately ?" "Anything I could get, for I have never learned a trade." "Would you like to learn one ?" He hesitated a minute, as if weighing his speech.

"Once I thought I should like to be what my father was." "What was he ?" "A scholar and a gentleman." This was news, though it did not much surprise me.

My father, tanner as he was, and pertinaciously jealous of the dignity of trade, yet held strongly the common-sense doctrine of the advantages of good descent; at least, in degree.