striped tunic and trousers waved her response, apparently the same
person he had quitted.

Dry and clad, and decently formal under the transformation, they met at
Mrs. Collett's breakfast-table, and in each hung the doubt whether land
was the dream or sea. Both owned to a swim; both omitted mention of
the tale of white ducks. Little Collett had brought Matey's and his
portmanteau into the house, by favour of the cook, through the scullery.
He, who could have been a pictorial and suggestive narrator, carried a
spinning head off his shoulders from this wonderful Countess of Ormont
to Matey Weyburn's dark-eyed Browny at High Brent, and the Sunday walk
in Sir Peter Wensell's park. Away and back his head went. Browny was not
to be thought of as Browny; she was this grand Countess of Ormont; she
had married Matey Weyburn's hero: she would never admit she had been
Browny. Only she was handsome then, and she is handsome now; and she
looks on Matey Weyburn now just as she did then. How strange is the
world! Or how if we are the particular person destined to encounter the
strange things of the world? And fancy J. Masner, and Pinnett major,
and young Oakes (liked nothing better than a pretty girl, he strutted
boasting at thirteen), and the Frenchy, and the lot, all popping down at
the table, and asked the name of the lady sitting like Queen Esther--how
they would roar out! Boys, of course--but men, too!--very few men have
a notion of the extraordinary complications and coincidences and
cracker-surprises life contains. Here 's an instance; Matey Weyburn
positively will wear white ducks to play before Aminta Farrell on the
first of May cricketing-day. He happens to have his white ducks on when
he sees the Countess of Ormont swimming in the sea; and so he can go in
just as if they were all-right bathing-drawers. In he goes, has a good
long swim with her, and when he comes out, says, of his dripping ducks,
'tabula votiva... avida vestimenta,' to remind an old schoolmate of his
hopping to the booth at the end of a showery May day, and dedicating
them to the laundry in these words. It seems marvellous. It was a quaint
revival, an hour after breakfast, for little Collett to be acting
as intermediary with Selina to request Lady Ormont's grant of a
five-minutes' interview before the church-bell summoned her. She was
writing letters, and sent the message: 'Tell Mr. Weyburn I obey.' Selina
delivered it, uttering 'obey' in a demurely comical