intimacies of school time supplied Godwin with friendships for the
years to come; his Twybridge class-fellows no longer interested him,
nor did they care to continue his acquaintance. One was articled to
a solicitor; one was learning the drug-trade in his father's shop;
another had begun to deal in corn; the rest were scattered about
England, as students or salary-earners. The dominion of the
commonplace had absorbed them, all and sundry; they were the stuff
which destiny uses for its every-day purposes, to keep the world
a-rolling.

So that Godwin had no ties which bound him strongly to any district.
He could not call himself a Londoner; for, though born in
Westminster, he had grown to consciousness on the outskirts of
Greenwich, and remembered but dimly some of the London streets, and
a few places of public interest to which his father had taken him.
Yet, as a matter of course, it was to London that his ambition
pointed, when he forecast the future. Where else could he hope for
opportunity of notable advancement? At Twybridge? Impossible to find
more than means of subsistence; his soul loathed such a prospect. At
Kingsmill? There was a slender hope that he might establish a
connection with Whitelaw College, if he devoted himself to
laboratory work; but what could come of that--at all events for
many years? London, then? The only acceptable plan for supporting
himself there was to succeed in a Civil Service competition. That,
indeed, seemed the most hopeful direction for his efforts; a
government office might afford him scope, and, he had heard, would
allow him abundant leisure.

Or to go abroad? To enter for the Indian clerkships, and possibly
cleave a wider way than could be hoped in England? There was