In the course of the afternoon the furniture arrived at Ernest’s new abode.  In the first floor we placed the piano, table, pictures, bookshelves, a couple of arm-chairs, and all the little household gods which he had brought from Cambridge.  The back room was furnished exactly as his bedroom at Ashpit Place had been—­new things being got for the bridal apartment downstairs.  These two first-floor rooms I insisted on retaining as my own, but Ernest was to use them whenever he pleased; he was never to sublet even the bedroom, but was to keep it for himself in case his wife should be ill at any time, or in case he might be ill himself.

In less than a fortnight from the time of his leaving prison all these arrangements had been completed, and Ernest felt that he had again linked himself on to the life which he had led before his imprisonment—­with a few important differences, however, which were greatly to his advantage.  He was no longer a clergyman; he was about to marry a woman to whom he was much attached, and he had parted company for ever with his father and mother.

True, he had lost all his money, his reputation, and his position as a gentleman; he had, in fact, had to burn his house down in order to get his roast sucking pig; but if asked whether he would rather be as he was now or as he was on the day before his arrest, he would not have had a moment’s hesitation in preferring his present to his past.  If his present could only have been purchased at the expense of all that he had gone through, it was still worth purchasing at the price, and he would go through it all again if necessary.  The loss of the money was the worst, but Ellen said she was sure they would get on, and she knew all about it.  As for the loss of reputation—­considering that he had Ellen and me left, it did not come to much.

I saw the house on the afternoon of the day on which all was finished, and there remained nothing but to buy some stock and begin selling.  When I was gone, after he had had his tea, he stole up to his castle—­the first floor front.  He lit his pipe and sat down to the piano.  He played Handel for an hour or so, and then set himself to the table to read and write.  He took all his sermons and all the theological works he had begun to compose during the time he had been a clergyman and put them in the fire; as he saw them consume he felt as though he had got rid of another incubus.  Then he took up some of the little pieces he had begun to write during the latter part of his undergraduate life at Cambridge, and began to cut them about and re-write them.  As he worked quietly at these till he heard the clock strike ten and it was time to go to bed, he felt that he was now not only happy but supremely happy.

Next day Ellen took him to Debenham’s auction rooms, and they surveyed the lots of clothes which were hung up all round the auction room to be viewed.  Ellen had had sufficient experience to know about how much each lot ought to fetch; she overhauled lot after lot, and valued it; in a very short time Ernest himself began to have a pretty fair idea what each lot should go for, and before the morning was over valued a dozen lots running at prices about which Ellen said he would not hurt if he could get them for that.