Lady Connie

, perched at the foot of her cousin's be

to do," said Constance defiantly. "Your English custom of coming down a

customed to bring it since Connie was a child. Mrs. Hooper had clearly expressed her disapproval of such habits, but neither Annette nor Connie had paid any attention. Annette had long since come to an understanding with the servants, and it was she who descended at half past seven, made the coffee herself, and brought up with it the nearest thing to the morning rolls

hours, and that it was a shocking example for the servants. But the maids took it with smiles, and were always ready to run up and down stairs for Lady Connie; while as for Oxford, the invitations which had descended upon the Hooper family, even during the few days since Connie's arrival, had given Aunt Ellen some feverish pleasure, but perhaps more annoyance. So far from Ewen's "position" being of any advantage to Connie, it w

r, wished to

with emphasis, as Connie pushed her tray away, and looke

per lying open amid the general litter of her morning's post, and to a paragraph among the foreign telegrams describing th

ing me all about it!" She tossed some closely-wri

she said, as though

ld be in Russian? You really ought to

Nora slowly. "There are all those fellows Chaucer b

ire. I stayed with them a night in Paris on my way through--and they never breathed. But I thought something was up. Sir Wilfrid's a queer t

her head, Connie's sparkling look subsi

d a duck-pond after all th

nce la

's experience. It'

ting place in the world. It's ideas that matter, and ideas come from the universities!" And the child-student

nt into a fi

he people who read and write about them when they're done. But goodness--

," said Nora deliberately, not budging.

inconveniently i

here. I met him on the Riviera. He came out for the Christmas hol

Nora, with energy, her hands round

hed again, but

im, please? He's ext

Nora, setting her white tee

le's friends. You should learn--indeed, you s

"He's the most hectoring, overbearing creature! The way he took possession of you the

turned a l

But really, Nora, I must turn you out. I shal

owards the bell. "Oh, Connie, you shall not fall in

ple are. He is very good company, and I won't have him abused--for nothing. His manners are abominable. I have told him so doz

great-ladyish, Constance threw

. She was bursting with things to say, and could no

some of the girls I know here; just because they're not swells and not rich, and he doesn't care what they think about him. Tha

what can it matter to him? You talk as though he were a hanger-on--as

ever said that, Connie!--I know Mr. Falloden needn't be a snob, because he's got everything that snobs want--and he's clever besides. But i

w it neatly at Nora, who dodged it with equal skill. Nora retreated t

ie!--

ed Connie, smilin

sented the kind of quasi-guardianship that this clever backfisch assumed towards her, though she knew it meant that Nora had fall

uldn't prot

g enough, without the consciousness that a pair o

m going to ride with him on Monday--without telling anybody; I vowed I would never put myself in his power

e again--her little foot in his strong hand--so easily and powerfully. It was Falloden who, when she and two or three others of the party found themselves by mistake on a dangerous bridle-path, on the very edge of a steep ravine in the Esterels, and her horse had become suddenly restive, had thrown himself off his own mount, and passing between her horse and the precipice, where any sudden movement of the frightened beast would have sent him to his death, had seized the bridle and led her into safety. And yet all the time, she had disliked him almost as much as she had been drawn to him. None of the many signs of his autocratic and imperious temper had escaped

m, no! Something very deep in her recoiled. She refused him, and then had lain awake most of the night thinking of her mother and f

the rest of the winter and early spring in thinking about him. And now she was going to do this reckless thing, out of sheer wilfulness, sheer thirst for adventure. She had always been a spoilt child, brought up with boundless indulgence, and accustomed to all the excitements of life. It looked as though Douglas Falloden were to be her excitement in Oxford. Girls like the two Miss Mansons might take possession of him in public, so long as

te's skilled hands to her mistress's brown hair. Had not Falloden himself arranged this whole adventure ahead?--foun

powers and will was not thereby in the least affected. She was

y called out of respect for the Reader, whose lectures they attended and admired. But they seldom came a second time; for although Alice had her following of young men, it was more amusing to meet her anywhere els

ly, and found Constance in a white dress strolling up and down the lawn under a scarlet parasol and surrounded by a group of men with

ou!--I wondered wh

said, smiling--"but I wanted to arrange with you when I mi

, you'll see! You'l

o-morrow then, at four

e to her. But Sorell was quite content to watch her from a distance, or to sit talking in a corner with N

ad produced upon his own early maturity one of those critical impressions, for good or evil, which men so sensitive and finely strung owe to women. The tenderness, the sympathy, the womanly insight

, where it gradually became bearable again to think of the too-many things he knew, and to apply them to his own pleasure and that of his companions. Ella Risborough was then forty-two, seventeen years older than himself, and her only daughter was a child of sixteen. He had loved them all--father, mother, and child--with the adoring gratitude of one physically and morally orphaned, to whom a new home and family has been temporarily given. For Ella and her husband had taken a warm affection to the refined and modest fellow, an

means, at that time, of continuing his friendship with their orphan child. Indeed his fastidious and scrupulous temperament forbade him any claim of the kind. He shrank from being misunderstood. Constance, in the hands of Colonel King and h

riendship with her parents. At the Vice-Chancellor's party, indeed, an old habit of looking after her had seized him again, and he had not been able to resist it. But it was her long disappearance with Falloden, her heightened colour, and preoccupied manner when they parted at the college gate, together with the incident at the boat-races of which he had been a witness, which had s

, and given them supper afterwards in his rooms. They had all met again at the boats on Friday, and here he was on Saturday, that he might make plans with Constance for Sunday and

rty at Mrs

d put in an appearance earlier in the afternoon; Herbert Pryce, and Bobbie Vernon of Magdalen, a Blue of the first eminence, skirmished round and round the newcomer, taking possession of her when they could. Mrs. Hooper, under the influence of so much social success, showed a red and flustered countenance, and her lace cap went awry. Alice helped her mother in the distribution of tea, but was curiously silent and self-effaced.

s beckoned, and he carried her off to the further end of the ga

er write to me a

t help a sl

s without me," he said,

The voice was reproachful. "I thou

could

on indignantly. "When did you ever do such

etrayed hi

e a little girl

then--to you. But I don't give away my Christian name to everybody

, half-imperious glance towar

ll s

g to be happy here!

ough--if I don't qua

in, before you do. And do make friend

e likes of me. Oh, I dare say

her tone a restlessness, a f

occupation? Learn something--go

y decided shake of the head. Th

ike to learn! Papa began to teach

throb of pleasure. "And

really m

and seasons, Constance throwing herself into

ll make you work

ome too?--if she wi

that m

!" she said with a frank smile.

you are go

n has found me a

alloden? I don't remember anybod

ained ca

going o

ly--"else I shall suffocate in this place. It's beautiful--Oxford!--but I don't understand it--it's not m

a disagreeable surprise, the note that was so unlike her mother--the note of recklessness, of vehement will. It

Eights all next week?" said Herbe

upposed it was necessary to tak

ely absent from his manner to Alice Hooper. He was well aware of her interest in him, and flattered by it; but, to do him justice, he had not gone out of his way to encourage it. She had been all very well, with her pretty little Fren

al talent for flirtation and an engaging penury of mind." Pryce thought the description good. She could be really engaging sometimes, when she was happy

nd with fear. For months she had clung to the belief that Herbert Pryce would ask her to marry him. And now all expectation of the magic words was beginning to fade from her mind. In one short week, as it seemed to her, she had been utterly eclipsed and thrown aside. Bob Vernon too, whose fancy for her, as shown in various winter dances, had made her immensely proud, he being then in that momentary limelight which flashes on the Blue, as he pas

le Alice felt a bitter env