“One port, methought, alike they sought,
     One purpose hold where’er they fare. 
     O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,
     At last, at last, unite them there!” *

     * Clough, Ambarvalia.

This is not mere longing; it is prophecy.  So over these too, our old friends, who are friends no more, we sorrow not as men without hope.  It is only for those who seem to us to have lost compass and purpose, and to be driven helplessly on rocks and quicksands, whose lives are spent in the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil, for self alone, and not for their fellow-men, their country, or their God, that we must mourn and pray without sure hope and without light, trusting only that He, in whose hands they as well as we are, who has died for them as well as for us, who sees all His creatures

     “With larger other eyes than ours,
     To make allowance for us all,”

will, in His own way and at His own time, lead them also home.

Another two years have passed, and it is again the end of the summer half-year at Rugby; in fact, the School has broken up.  The fifth-form examinations were over last week, and upon them have followed the speeches, and the sixth-form examinations for exhibitions; and they too are over now.  The boys have gone to all the winds of heaven, except the town boys and the eleven, and the few enthusiasts besides who have asked leave to stay in their houses to see the result of the cricket matches.  For this year the Wellesburn return match and the Marylebone match are played at Rugby, to the great delight of the town and neighbourhood, and the sorrow of those aspiring young cricketers who have been reckoning for the last three months on showing off at Lord’s ground.

The Doctor started for the Lakes yesterday morning, after an interview with the captain of the eleven, in the presence of Thomas, at which he arranged in what school the cricket dinners were to be, and all other matters necessary for the satisfactory carrying out of the festivities, and warned them as to keeping all spirituous liquors out of the close, and having the gates closed by nine o’clock.

The Wellesburn match was played out with great success yesterday, the School winning by three wickets; and to-day the great event of the cricketing year, the Marylebone match, is being played.  What a match it has been!  The London eleven came down by an afternoon train yesterday, in time to see the end of the Wellesburn match; and as soon as it was over, their leading men and umpire inspected the ground, criticising it rather unmercifully.  The captain of the School eleven, and one or two others, who had played the Lord’s match before, and knew old Mr. Aislabie and several of the Lord’s men, accompanied them; while the rest of the eleven looked on from under the Three Trees with admiring eyes, and asked one another the names of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how many runs each of them