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But Bertie Swanborough and Stark Munro will be blowing about on the west wind, and dirtying the panes of careful housewives long before the half of it has come to pass. And then man himself will change, of course. The teeth are going rapidly. You've only to count the dentists' brass plates in Birchespool to be sure of that. And the hair also. And the sight.

It had struck me, during my journey back from Stockwell, that Birchespool would be a good place; so on the very next day I started off, taking my luggage with me, and bidding a final good-bye to Cullingworth and his wife. "You rely upon me, laddie," said C. with something of his old geniality, as we shook hands on parting.

From the shouting which I could hear some time after I reached the door of my lodgings, I gathered that a good battle was still raging. You see, it was the merest piece of luck in the world that my first appearance in Birchespool was not in the dock of the police-court. I should have had no one to answer for me, if I had been arrested, and should have been put quite on a level with my adversary.

I sat down and listened to the band for an hour, watching all the family parties, and feeling particularly lonely. Music nearly always puts me into the minor key; so there came a time when I could stand it no longer, and I set off to find my way back to my lodgings. On the whole, I felt that Birchespool was a place in which a man might very well spend a happy life.

Why should we, when that which is most engrossing to us consists in those gradual shades of advance from friendship to intimacy, and from intimacy to something more sacred still, which can scarcely be written at all, far less made interesting to another? The time came at last when they were to leave Birchespool, and my mother and I went round the night before to say goodbye.

Winnie and I were thrown together for an instant. "When will you come back to Birchespool?" I asked. "Mother does not know." "Will you come soon, and be my wife?" I had been turning over in my head all the evening how prettily I could lead up to it, and how neatly I could say it and behold the melancholy result!

Yet it pleases me to write as long as I have your assurance that it pleases you to read. Pray, give my kindest remembrances to your wife, and to Camelford also, if he should happen to come your way. He was on the Mississippi when last I heard. XII. OAKLEY VILLAS, BIRCHESPOOL, 5th June, 1882.

And I had youth and strength and energy, and the whole science of medicine packed in between my two ears. I felt as exultant as though I were going to take over some practice which lay ready for me. It was about four in the afternoon when I reached Birchespool, which is fifty-three miles by rail from Bradfield.

It is small enough to have a character of its own, and large enough for solitude, which is always the great charm of a city, after the offensive publicity of the country. When I turned out with my brass plate, my trunk, and my hat-box upon the Birchespool platform, I sat down and wondered what my first move should be.

Once more adieu, and good luck! XV. OAKLEY VILLAS, BIRCHESPOOL, 3rd August, 1883. Do you think that such a thing as chance exists? Rather an explosive sentence to start a letter with; but pray cast your mind back over your own life, and tell me if you think that we really are the sports of chance.