Providence¹, I cannot but believe, had all this time humoured us along a seeming “Road of Casualty,” which was, in truth, the direct path to its own wonderful ends. We talk of luck and accident and coincidence. They are, I am certain, but the veils with which It blinds us to Its inexorable conclusions. My chance selection of our destination, my uncle’s mishap—what were these but second and third acts in the strange drama which had begun in the law courts of Ipswich, where my father had given his life for a truth, which was to be here, thirty miles away, proven and consummated². The dénouement was distant yet, to be sure, for Providence, having all eternity³ to plot in, works deliberately⁴. Nevertheless, It never loses sight, I think, of what we call the Unities⁵ of Art.

 

I awoke from a dreamless sleep, a restored and avid⁶ little giant. It was bright morning. A clock on the stairs cleared its throat and sang out six times. The house was still, save for a shuffling⁷ of drowsy⁸ maids at their dusting below. I lay quiet, conscious of the most unfamiliar⁹ atmosphere all about me—of whitewashed¹⁰ walls; of a smell between wood-smoke and seaweed and the faint sourness of beer; of cold boarded floors gritty with sand; of utter remoteness from the noise of traffic habitual¹¹ to a young

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