find myself sitting up in bed, bitterly sorry and wrathful that a mocking dream has made a fool of me again. I have pinched myself hard six times, and at the end of each nip have felt relieved on finding that the train, my vis-à-vis, and my novel have not vanished into thin air. For a week I have been dancing like a cat on hot bricks, alternating between feverish hope and grovelling despair; I have packed and unpacked my modest wardrobe at least twelve times, and only a short hour ago, I was drowned in tears because the latest verdict had gone forth, "She shall not go." Whether mother thereupon went down on her knees before her lord, as Philippa did to hers, and softened his flinty heart with her tears and prayers, I know not; at any rate his decision was reversed, and that delusive jade Hope spread her wings and vanished, leaving blessed and calm certainty in her place.
It is a quarter of an hour since I left Silverbridge station, and wished mother and George good-bye. He did look so down in the mouth, and I always did hate to see a man miserable: all women whimper more or less, but men ought not to be bothered. Well, he'll get out into the world some day I hope; and there's nothing puts a love affair out of a man's head so quickly as having a lot to do: it is only the people who sit down and think, think, think of one particular person, who take a disappointment so much to heart. I think most lunatics in love lived in the country. I wish I had a pleasant travelling companion; some one who would not be afraid to open his or her lips, and with whom I could exchange a few reasonable remarks. There is small hope, however, of this lot. They belong, I can see at a glance, to that large class of people who look with horror on the smallest approach to conversation from a stranger; who are bound hard and fast by that ridiculous law of society which commands human beings to be in each other's company for hours, and yet give no more sign that they are aware of each other's presence and existence than if they were carrots or
