He had seen her again before that day, both because she
had more than once accompanied the ancient lady to town and because
he had paid another visit to the friends who so conveniently made
of Weatherend one of the charms of their own hospitality. These
friends had taken him back there; he had achieved there again with
Mss Bartram some quiet detachment; and he had in London succeeded
in persuading her to more than one brief absence from her aunt.
They went together, on these latter occasions, to the National
Gallery and the South Kensington Museum, where, among vivid
reminders, they talked of Italy at large--not now attempting to
recover, as at first, the taste of their youth and their ignorance.
That recovery, the first day at Weatherend, had served its purpose
well, had given them quite enough; so that they were, to Marcher's
sense, no longer hovering about the head-waters of their stream,
but had felt their boat pushed sharply off and down the current.
They were literally afloat together; for our gentleman this was
marked, quite as marked as that the fortunate cause of it was just
the buried treasure of her knowledge.
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