itzerland. You and I will be
corresponding.'

Now rose to view the visit to the lady who was Lady Ormont on the tongue,
Aminta at heart; never to be named Aminta even to himself. His heart
broke loose at a thought of it.

He might say Browny. For that was not serious with the intense present
signification the name Aminta had. Browny was queen of the old
school-time-enclosed it in her name; and that sphere enclosed her, not
excluding him. And the dear name of Browny played gently, humorously,
fervently, too, with life: not, pathetically, as that of Aminta did when
came a whisper of her situation, her isolation, her friendlessness;
hardly dissimilar to what could be imagined of a gazelle in the streets
of London city. The Morsfields were not all slain. The Weyburns would be
absent.

At the gate of his cottage garden Weyburn beheld a short unfamiliar
figure of a man with dimly remembered features. Little Collett he still
was in height. The schoolmates had not met since the old days of Cuper's.

Little Collett delivered a message of invitation from Selina, begging Mr.
Weyburn to accompany her brother on the coach to Harwich next day, and
spend two or three days by the sea. But Weyburn's mind had been set in
the opposite direction--up Thames instead of down.

He was about to refuse, but he checked his voice and hummed. Words of
Selina's letter jumped in italics. He perceived Lady Ormont's hand. For
one thing, would she be at Great Marlow alone? And he knew that hand--how
deftly it moved and moved others. Selina Collett would not have invited
him with underlinings merely to see a shoreside house and garden. Her
silence regarding a particular name showed her to be under injunction,
one might guess. At worst, it would be the loss of a couple of days;
worth the venture. They agreed to journey by coach next day.

Facing eastward in the morning, on a seat behind the coachman, Weyburn
had a seafaring man beside him, bound for the good port of Harwich, where
his family lived, and thence by his own boat to Flushing. Weyburn set him
talking of himself, as the best way of making him happy; for it is the
theme which pricks to speech, and so liberates an uncomfortably locked-up
stranger; who, if sympathetic to human proximity, is thankful. They
exchanged names, delighted to find they were both Matthews; whereupon
Matthew of the sea demanded the paw of Matthew of the land, and there was
a squeeze. The same with little Collett, after