u! Good-bye, my beloved Charles, good-bye!"

Charles had to pass a day or two at the house of a relative who lived a
little way out of London. While he was there a letter arrived for him,
forwarded from home; it was from Willis, dated from London, and
announced that he had come to a very important decision, and should not
return to Oxford. Charles was fairly in the world again, plunged into
the whirl of opinions: how sad a contrast to his tranquil home! There
was no mistaking what the letter meant; and he set out at once with the
chance of finding the writer at the house from which he dated it. It was
a lodging at the west-end of town; and he reached it about noon.

He found Willis in company with a person apparently two or three years
older. Willis started on seeing him.

"Who would have thought! what brings you here?" he said; "I thought you
were in the country." Then to his companion, "This is the friend I was
speaking to you about, Morley. A happy meeting; sit down, dear Reding; I
have much to tell you."

Charles sat down all suspense, looking at Willis with such keen anxiety
that the latter was forced to cut the matter short. "Reding, I am a
Catholic."

Charles threw himself back in his chair, and turned pale.

"My dear Reding, what is the matter with you? why don't you speak to
me?"

Charles was still silent; at last, stooping forward, with his elbows on
his knees, and his head on his hands, he said, in a low voice, "O
Willis, what have you done!"

"Done?" said Willis; "what _you_ should do, and half Oxford besides. O
Reding, I'm so happy!"

"Alas, alas!" said Charles; "but what is the good of my staying?--all
good attend you, Willis; good-bye!"

"No, my good Reding, you don't leave me so soon, having found me so
unexpectedly; and you have had a long walk, I dare say; sit down,
there's a good fellow; we shall have luncheon soon, and you must not go
without taking your part in it." He took Charles's hat from him, as he
spoke; and Charles, in a mixture of feelings, let him have his way.

"O Willis, so you have separated yourself from us for ever!" he said;
"you have taken your course, we keep ours: our paths are different."

"Not so," said Willis; "you must follow me, and we shall be one still."

Charles was half offended; "Really I must go," he said, and he rose;
"you must not talk in that manner."

"Pray, forgive me," answered Willis; "I won't do so again; but I could
not help it; I am not in a co