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we reached Bristol; to wait ten minutes. My old gentleman rubbed the side window with his coat cuff, in vain; attacked the centre window, again in vain, so blurred and blotted was it with the torrents of rain! A moment’s hesitation, and then:

“‘Young lady, would you mind my putting down this window?’

“‘Oh no, not at all.’

“‘You may be drenched, you know.’

“‘Never mind, sir.’

“Immediately, down goes the window, out go the old gentleman’s head and shoulders, and there they stay for I suppose nearly nine minutes. Then he drew them in, and I said:

“‘Oh please let me look.’

“‘Now you will be drenched;’ but he half opened the window for me to see. Such a sight, such a chaos of elemental and artificial lights and noises, I never saw or heard, or expect to see or hear. He drew up the window as we moved on, and then leant back with closed eyes for I dare say ten minutes, then opened them and said:

“‘Well?’

“I said, ‘I’ve been “drenched,” but it’s worth it.’

“He nodded and smiled, and again took to his steady but quite inoffensive perusing of my face, and presently said it was a bad night for one so young and alone. He had not seen me at Exeter.

“‘No, I got in at Plymouth.’

“‘Plymouth!!’

“‘Yes.’ I then said I could only save my friends trouble and anxiety by travelling up that night, and told simply the how it came to pass. Then, except a little joke when we were going through a long tunnel (then the terror of ‘elegant females’), silence until Swindon, but always the speculative, steady look. There we all got out and I got some tea and biscuits. When we were getting in (the storm by then over), they asked me if I had got some refreshment, and when I said tea, my friend with the eyes said:

“‘Tea! poor stuff; you should have had soup.’

“I said tea was more refreshing, as I had not had anything since eight the previous morning. We all laughed, and I found the two cosy friends had had something more ‘comfortable’ than tea, and speedily fell into slumber, while I watched the dawn and oncoming brightness of one of the loveliest June mornings that have ever visited the earth.

48. “At six o’clock we steamed into Paddington station, and I had signalled a porter before my friends roused themselves. They were very kind,-could they do anything to help me?-where had I to go to? ‘Hammersmith: that was a long drive.’ Then they took off their hats, and went off arm in arm.

“I reached North End, where Georgie* now lives, as I hoped I should, just as our baker was opening his shop at seven o’clock; wrote on rough baker’s bill-paper a note to John, and sent it off by the baker’s boy on the cab, begging John to let my sister know; and then leaving my luggage at the baker’s, walked on the short way to our dear friend’s house, where I

* Mrs. Edward Burne-Jones.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]