It is then he insists on setting up a separate
establishment; when this has been once agreed to, the more complete
the separation for ever after the better for both." Then he said
more seriously: "I want to put the children where they will be well
and happy, and where they will not be betrayed into the misery of
false expectations."
In the end he remembered that on his Sunday walks he had more than
once seen a couple who lived on the waterside a few miles below
Gravesend, just where the sea was beginning, and who he thought
would do. They had a family of their own fast coming on and the
children seemed to thrive; both father and mother indeed were
comfortable, well grown folks, in whose hands young people would be
likely to have as fair a chance of coming to a good development as
in those of any whom he knew.
We went down to see this couple, and as I thought no less well of
them than Ernest did, we offered them a pound a week to take the
children and bring them up as though they were their own. They
jumped at the offer, and in another day or two we brought the children
down and left them, feeling that we had done as well as we could by
them, at any rate for the present.
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