I met Rachel again in Germany through the devices of my cousin the Fürstin Letzlingen. I had finished seeing what I wanted to see in Westphalia and I was preparing to go to the United States. There I thought I should be able to complete and round off that large view of the human process I had been developing in my mind. But my departure was delayed by an attack of that I picked up at a Congress in Munich, and the dear Durchlaucht, hearing of this and having her own views of my destiny, upon me while I was still in bed there, made me get up and carried me off in her car, to take care of me herself at her at Boppard, telling me nothing of any fellow-guests I might encounter.  
She had a villa upon the Rhine under a hill of vineyards, where she herself—she was a widow—to matchmaking and belated regrets for the childlessness that a perpetual borrowing of material for her pursuit. She had a motor-car, a steam-launch, several rowing boats and canoes, a tennis-lawn, a garden, a house and a rapid mind, and in fact everything that was necessary for throwing young people together. She made her surprise seem easy and natural, and with returning health I found myself already back upon my old footing of friendly with Rachel.
 
I found her a new and yet a familiar Rachel. She had grown up, she was no longer a schoolgirl, crystalline clear with gleams of emotion and understanding, and what she had lost in transparency she had gained in depth. And she had become well-informed, she had been reading very widely and well, I could see, and not simply reading but talking and listening and thinking. She showed a vivid interest in the current of home politics,—at that time the last government of Mr. Balfour was to its end and my old Transvaal friends, the Chinese coolies, were to themselves on their importers. The Reformers my f............