He had a very numerous cousinship, but did not much cultivate it. Sometimes, yielding to pressure, he would dine with cousins in London; or pay a flying visit to them in the country; but in order, as it was supposed to avoid these family entanglements, he lived at Wimbledon, where he enjoyed, in a quiet way, his garden and his library, and spent most of the day in solitary rides among the Surrey hills. When winter set in he generally vanished towards the South of Europe, but by Easter he was back again at Wimbledon, and was to be found pretty often at one or other of his clubs. This was Philip Vaughan, as people knew him in 1880. Some liked him; some pitied him; some rather despised him; but no one took the trouble to understand him; and indeed, if anyone had thought it worth while to do so, the attempt would probably have been unsuccessful; for Vaughan never talked of the past, and to understand him in 1880 one must have known him as he had been thirty years before. In 1850 two of the best known of the young men in society were Arthur Grey and Philip Vaughan. They were, and had been ever since their schooldays at Harrow, inseparable friends. The people to whom friendship is a sealed and hopeless mystery were puzzled by the alliance. "What have those two fellows in common?" was the constant question, "and yet you never see them apart." They shared lodgings in Mount Street, frequented the same clubs, and went, night after night, to the same diners and balls. They belonged, in short, to the same set: "went everywhere," as the phrase is, and both were extremely popular; but their pursuits and careers were different. Grey was essentially a sportsman and an athlete. He was one of those men to whom all bodily exercises come naturally, and who attain perfection in them with no apparent effort. From his earliest days he had set his heart on being a soldier, and by 1850 had obtained a commission in the Guards. Vaughan had neither gifts nor inclinations in the way of sport or games. At Harrow he lived the life of the intellect and the spirit, and was unpopular accordingly. He was constantly to be found "mooning," as his schoolfellows said, in the green lanes and meadow-paths which lie between Harrow and Uxbridge, or gazing, as Byron had loved to gaze, at the sunset from the Churchyard Terrace. It was even whispered that he wrote poetry. Arthur Grey, with his good looks, his frank bearing, and his facile supremacy on the cricket-ground and in the racquet-court, was a popular hero; and of all his schoolfellows none paid him a more whole-hearted worship than the totally dissimilar Philip Vaughan. Their close and intimate affection was a standing puzzle to hard and dull and superficial natures; but a poet could interpret it. "We trifled, toiled, and feasted, far apart From churls, who, wondered what our friendship meant; And in that coy retirement heart to heart Drew closer, and our natures were content."[*] [Footnote *: William Cory.]