"Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you!" said he with a melancholy smile. "I am away on leave this day--should have been gone in another hour--and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. Well! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all the professions."
"Richard," I urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?"

"Like you, Esther, but useless, and so not like you!" said he with a melancholy smile. "I am away on leave this day - and I am selling out. Well! So this calling follows the rest. I only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all the professions."
"Richard," I urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?"
