"They walked on by the river. They began to speak of their separate plans. He would quicken his departure from England, and she would remain where she was, at least as long as Helena remained. The poor dear girls should have their disappointment broken to them gently, and, as the first preliminary, Miss Twinkleton should be confided in by Rosa, even in advance of the reappearance of Mr. Grewgious. It should be made clear in all quarters that she and Edwin were the best of friends. There had never been so serene an understanding between them since they were first affianced." We are anxious to identify Cloisterham Weir, frequently mentioned in _Edwin Drood_, but more particularly as being the place where Minor Canon Crisparkle found Edwin's watch and shirt-pin. The Weir, we are told in the novel, "is full two miles above the spot to which the young men [Edwin and Neville] had repaired [presumably the Esplanade] to watch the storm." There is, however, no Weir nearer than Allington, at which place the tide of the Medway stops, and Allington is a considerable distance from Rochester, probably seven or eight miles. How well the good Minor Canon's propensity for "perpetually pitching himself headforemost into all the deep water in the surrounding country," and his "pilgrimages to Cloisterham Weir in the cold rimy mornings," are brought into requisition to enable him to obtain the watch and pin. "He threw off his clothes, he plunged into the icy water, and swam for the spot--a corner of the Weir--where something glistened which did not move and come over with the glistening water drops, but remained stationary. . . . He brought the watch to the bank, swam to the Weir again, climbed it, and dived off. He knew every hole and corner of all the depths, and dived and dived and dived, until he could bear the cold no more. His notion was that he would find the body; he only found a shirt-pin sticking in some mud and ooze." Our failure to identify Cloisterham Weir exhibits another instance where, for the purposes of the story, an imaginary place is introduced. To Mr. William Ball is due the credit for subsequently suggesting that Snodland Brook and Snodland Weir may have possibly been in Dickens's mind in originating Cloisterham Weir; so we tramped over to inspect them. Near the village, the brook (or river, for it is of respectable width) is turbid and shallow, but higher up--a mile or so--we found it clearer and deeper, and we heard from some labourers, whom we saw regaling themselves by the side of a hayrick, that a local gentleman had some years ago been in the habit of bathing in the stream all the year round. [Illustration: St. Nicholas' Burying Ground]