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.
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