and water are full of secrets, many of which yet defy our efforts to learn and catalogue them. This century has been prolific of discoveries, but even add another hundred years of fresh revelations, and Nature will still give us riddles to solve out of her exhaustless store. Therefore, when a coincidence occurs in a fiction, though it may be improbable, it is not impossible, and he who takes the trouble to keep his eyes open, his mental as well as his physical eyes, will, in nearly every case, find the counterpart of the ideal in the real. Here, then, are two mysterious individuals, who, masquerading under the names of Crispin and Caliphronas, meet one another in the most unexpected manner in the most unexpected place. Wiseacres will at once say “Impossible!” but, going on the theory set forth as before, such a meeting is not impossible, but probable. Fate, Destiny, Fortune,—whatever be the name of the power which guides our circumstances,—delights in surprises quite as much as does the novelist; therefore, why should we believe the first and doubt the second? This is inconsistent! Therefore, if you who read are wise in your generation, and broad in your views of probability, you will see nothing impossible in this unexpected meeting of poet and adventurer. Caliphronas was an adventurer pure and simple, of course, as regards his vocation as free lance, but not as touching his moral or physical qualities. He had come to England with a distinct end in view, and already had made the first step to the accomplishment of that end. Whether his intentions were good or bad remains to be seen, and if, my dear reader, you cannot tell the quality of his designs from the character of the man as before described, you must perforce remain in ignorance, even as Crispin remained, for, truth to tell, that astute individual was for once in his life really and truly puzzled. He knew Caliphronas in Greek waters, under another name, and, having had considerable experience of his character, was quite confident that he had some object in view for thus making his appearance at Roylands. With the determination of finding out that object, and thwarting it if he could,—for Crispin had no very great love for the Greek,—our poet walked down to the park gates between the hours of five and six, with the intention of having an interview with this mysterious stranger.