"''Twas kin' o' kingdom come to look
On sech a blessed creatur.
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.'"

So the train went off, and Derrick and I were left to idle about
Southampton and kill time as best we might. Derrick seemed to walk
the streets in a sort of dream--he was perfectly well aware that he
had met his fate, and at that time no thought of difficulties in the
way had arisen either in his mind or in my own. We were both of us
young and inexperienced; we were both of us in love, and we had the
usual lover's notion that everything in heaven and earth is prepared
to favour the course of his particular passion.

I remember that we soon found the town intolerable, and, crossing by
the ferry, walked over to Netley Abbey, and lay down idly in the
shade of the old grey walls. Not a breath of wind stirred the great
masses of ivy which were wreathed about the ruined church, and the
place looked so lovely in its decay, that we felt disposed to judge
the dissolute monks very leniently for having behaved so badly that
their church and monastery had to be opened to the four winds of
heaven. After all, when is a church so beautiful as when it has the
green grass for its floor and the sky for its roof?

I could show you the very spot near the East window where Derrick
told me the whole truth, and where we talked over Freda's
perfections and the probability of frequent meetings in London. He
had listened so often and so patiently to my affairs, that it seemed
an odd reversal to have to play the confidant; and if now and then