Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Lady Augusta, Constance, the servants, and
the Bishop of Helstonleigh: for no less a personage than that
distinguished prelate had been the visitor to Mr. Channing, come to
congratulate him on his cure and his return.
The woman who had accompanied Charley stood apart--a hard-featured
woman, in a clean cotton gown, and clean brown apron, whose face
proclaimed that she lived much in the open air. Perhaps she lived so
much in it as to disdain bonnets, for she wore none--a red cotton
handkerchief, fellow to the one on Charley's head, being pinned over
her white calico cap.
Many unexpected meetings take place in this life. A casual acquaintance
whom we have met years ago, but whom we never expected to see again,
may come across our path to-morrow. You, my reader, did not, I am sure,
expect to meet that woman again, whom you saw hanging up linen in a
boat, as it glided beneath the old cathedral walls, under the noses of
Bywater and a few more of his tribe, the morning they were throwing
away those unlucky keys, which they fondly thought were never to be
fished up again. But here is that very woman before you now, come to
pay these pages as unexpected a visit as the keys paid to the college
boys. Not more unlooked for, and not more strange than some of our
meetings in actual life.
"Mamma, I have been ill; I have been nearly dying; and she has nursed
me through it, and been kind to me.
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