rs. The "Royal Clarence" did exist in the little town, whether
under that name or not, I forget. But I can testify from experience,
acquired some forty years afterwards, that Mr. and Mrs. Clemow now
keep there one of the best inns of its class, that I, no incompetent
expert in such matters, know in all England.

Then, when the autumn days began to draw in, we returned to Exeter,
and many a long consultation was held by my mother and I, sallying
forth from Fanny Bent's hospitable house for a _tete-a-tete_ stroll on
Northernhay, on the question of "What next?"

It turned out to be a more momentous question than we either of us
imagined it to be at the time; for the decision of it involved the
shape and form of the entire future life of one of us, and still more
important modification of the future life of the other. Dresden was
talked of. Rome was considered. Paris was thought of. Venice was
discussed. No one of them was proposed as a future permanent home.
Finally Florence came on the _tapis_. We had liked it much, and had
formed some much valued friendships there. It was supposed to be
economical as a place to live in, which was one main point. For our
plan was to make for ourselves for two or three years a home and way
of living sufficiently cheap to admit of combining with it large plans
of summer travel. And eventually Florence was fixed on.

As for my mother, it turned out that she was then selecting her last
and final home--though the end was not, thank God, for many a long
year yet. As for me, the decision arrived at during those walks on
Exeter Northernhay, was more momentous still. For I was choosing the
road that led not only to my home for the next half century nearly,
but to two marriages, both of them so happy in all respects as rarely
to have fallen to the lot of one and the same man!

How little we either of us, my mother and I, saw into the
future--beyond a few immediate inches before our noses! Truly _prudens
futuri temporis exitum caliginosa nocte premit Deus!_ And when I hear
talk of "conduct making fate," I often think--humbly and gratefully, I
trust; marvelling, certainly,--how far it could have _a priori_ seemed
probable, that the conduct of a man who, without either _oes in
presenti_, or any very visible prospect of _oes in futuro_, turns
aside from all the beaten paths of professional industry should
have led him to a long life of happiness and content, hardly to be
surpassed, and, I should fe