There was no one now at Bruntsea whom I might not wish to meet, as he knew by a trifling accident; and after all the kind services rendered by Major and Mrs.
Hockin, it was hardly right to let them begin to feel themselves neglected.

Now the very same thing had occurred to me, and I was going to propose it; and many things which I found it hard to do without were left in my little chest of locked-up drawers there.

But of that, to my knowledge, I scarcely thought twice; whereas I longed to see and have a talk with dear "Aunt Mary." Now, since my affairs had been growing so strange, and Lord Castlewood had come forward--not strongly, but still quite enough to speak of--there had been a kind-hearted and genuine wish at Bruntsea to recover me.

And this desire had unreasonably grown while starved with disappointment.

The less they heard of me, the more they imagined in their rich good-will, and the surer they became that, after all, there was something in my ideas.
But how could I know this, without any letters from them, since letters were a luxury forbidden me at Shoxford?
I knew it through one of the simplest and commonest of all nature's arrangements.