There were some seventy of us—all scattered now. I meet one here and there at wide distances apart; and we talk together of old days, and of our present work and life—and separate. Just so ships at sea, in murky weather, will shift their course to come within hailing distance, and compare their longitude, and—part. One I have met wandering in southern Italy, dreaming—as I was dreaming—over the tomb of Virgil, by the dark grotto of Pausilippo. It seemed strange to talk of our old readings in Tacitus there upon classic ground; but we did; and ran on to talk of our lives; and, sitting down upon the promontory of Baie, looking off upon that blue sea, as clear as the classics, we told each other our respective stories. And two nights after, upon the quay, in sight of Vesuvius, which shed a lurid glow upon the sky that was reflected from the white walls of the Hotel de Russie, and from the broad lava pavements, we parted—he to wander among the isles of the Ægean, and I to turn northward. Another time, as I was wandering among those mysterious figures that crowd the foyer of the French opera upon a night of the Masked Ball, I saw a familiar face; I followed it with my eye until I became convinced. He did not know me until I named his old seat upon the bench of the division rooms, and the hard-faced Tutor G——. Then we talked of the old rivalries, and Christmas jollities, and of this and that one, whom we had come upon in our wayward tracks; while the black-robed grisettes stared through their velvet masks; nor did we tire of comparing the old memories with the unearthly gayety of the scene about us until daylight broke. In a quiet mountain town of New England I came not long since upon another; he was hale and hearty, and pushing his lawyer work with just the same nervous energy with which he used to recite a theorem of Euclid. He was father, too, of a couple of stout, curly-pated boys; and his good woman, as he called her, appeared a sensible, honest, good-natured lady. I must say that I envied him his wife much more than I had envied my companion of the opera his Domine. I happened only a little while ago to drop into the college chapel of a Sunday. There were the same hard oak benches below, and the lucky fellows who enjoyed a corner seat were leaning back upon the rail, after the old fashion. The tutors were perched up in their side boxes, looking as prim and serious and important as ever. The same stout doctor read the hymn in the same rhythmical way; and he prayed the same prayer for (I thought) the same old sort of sinners. As I shut my eyes to listen, it seemed as if the intermediate years had all gone out, and that I was on my own pew bench, and thinking out those little schemes for excuses, or for effort, which were to relieve me, or to advance me, in my college world.