le rising
practice to wind. What awful things lurk at the corners of Life's
highway, ready to pounce upon us as we pass!

And so you really are going a-voyaging! Well, I won't write again until
I hear that you are back from the Islands, and then I hope to have
something a little more cheery to talk about.

XVI. OAKLEY VILLAS, BIRCHESPOOL, 4th November, 1884.

I face my study window as I write, Bertie. Slate-coloured clouds with
ragged fringes are drifting slowly overhead. Between them one has a
glimpse of higher clouds of a lighter gray. I can hear the gentle swish
of the rain striking a clearer note on the gravel path and a duller
among the leaves. Sometimes it falls straight and heavy, till the air is
full of the delicate gray shading, and for half a foot above the ground
there is a haze from the rebound of a million tiny globules. Then
without any change in the clouds it cases off again. Pools line my walk,
and lie thick upon the roadway, their surface pocked by the falling
drops. As I sit I can smell the heavy perfume of the wet earth, and the
laurel bushes gleam where the light strikes sideways upon them. The
gate outside shines above as though it were new varnished, and along the
lower edge of the upper bar there hangs a fringe of great clear drops.

That is the best that November can do for us in our dripping little
island. You, I suppose, sitting among the dying glories of an American
fall, think that this must needs be depressing. Don't make any mistake
about that, my dear boy. You may take the States, from Detroit to
the Gulf, and you won't find a happier man than this one. What do you
suppose I've got att his{sic-- at this} moment in my consulting room? A
bureau? A bookcase? No, I know you've guessed my secret already. She
is sitting in my big armchair; and she is the best, the kindest, the
sweetest little woman in England.

Yes, I've been married six months now--the almanack says months, though
I should have thought weeks. I should, of course, have sent cake and
cards, but had an idea that you were not home from the Islands yet.
It is a good year since I wrote to you; but when you give an amorphous
address of that sort, what can you expect? I've thought of you, and
talked of you often enough.

Well, I daresay, with the acumen of an old married man, you have guessed
who the lady is as well. We surely know by some nameless instinct more
about our futures than we think we know. I can remember, for e