“No, nothing to be called talk. She told me they were leaving London next week, and she was longing to get back to the country to her beloved animals--rabbits, poultry, an aviary, and all that kind of thing. I should gather that they had kept her rather in the background this season, but I understand that the eldest sister is to be married in the winter, and then no doubt Miss Freda will be brought forward.” He seemed wonderfully cheered by this opportune meeting, and though there was so little to tell he appeared to be quite content. I left him on Monday in fairly good spirits, and did not come across him again till September, when his arm was well, and his novel finished and revised. He never made two copies of his work, and I fancy this was perhaps because he spent so short a time each day in actual writing, and lived so continually in his work; moreover, as I said before, he detested penmanship. The last part of ‘Lynwood’ far exceeded my expectations; perhaps--yet I don’t really think so--I viewed it too favourably. But I owed the book a debt of gratitude, since it certainly helped me through the worst part of my life. “Don’t you feel flat now it is finished?” I asked. “I felt so miserable that I had to plunge into another story three days after,” he replied; and then and there he gave me the sketch of his second novel, ‘At Strife,’ and told me how he meant to weave in his childish fancies about the defence of the bridge in the Civil Wars. “And about ‘Lynwood?’ Are you coming up to town to hawk him round?” I asked. “I can’t do that,” he said; “you see I am tied here. No, I must send him off by rail, and let him take his chance.” “No such thing!” I cried. “If you can’t leave Bath I will take him round for you.”