He knew that action was but a temporary remedy.

College would have been his chronic medicine, and the old lady's acuteness in seeing it impressed him forcibly.

She had given him a peaceable two days on the Upper Thames, in an atmosphere of plain good sense and just-mindedness.

He wrote to thank her, saying: 'My England at sea will be your parlour-window looking down the grass to the river and rushes; and when you do me the honour to write, please tell me the names of those wildflowers growing along the banks in Summer.' The old lady replied immediately, enclosing a cheque for fifty pounds: 'Colonel Halkett informs me you are under a cloud at Steynham, and I have thought you may be in want of pocket-money.

The wild-flowers are willowherb, meadow-sweet, and loosestrife.