me. The last night of the term had arrived, the last
night too of John's Oxford career. It was near nine o'clock, but still
quite light, and the rich orange glow of sunset had not yet left the
sky. The air was warm and sultry, as on that eventful evening when just
a year ago he had for the first time seen the figure or the illusion
of the figure of Adrian Temple. Since that time he had played the
"Areopagita" many, many times; but there had never been any reappearance
of that form, nor even had the once familiar creaking of the wicker
chair ever made itself heard. As he sat alone in his room, thinking with
a natural melancholy that he had seen the sun set for the last time on
his student life, and reflecting on the possibilities of the future
and perhaps on opportunities wasted in the past, the memory of that
evening last June recurred strongly to his imagination, and he felt an
irresistible impulse to play once more the "Areopagita." He unlocked
the now familiar cupboard and took out the violin, and never had the
exquisite gradations of colour in its varnish appeared to greater
advantage than in the soft mellow light of the fading day. As he began
the _Gagliarda_ he looked at the wicker chair, half expecting to see a
form he well knew seated in it; but nothing of the kind ensued, and he
concluded the "Areopagita" without the occurrence of any unusual
phenomenon.

It was just at its close that he heard some one knocking at the outer
door. He hurriedly locked away the violin and opened the "oak." It was
Mr. Gaskell. He came in rather awkwardly, as though not sure whether he
would be welcomed.

"Johnnie," he began, and stopped.

The force of ancient habit sometimes, dear nephew, leads us unwittingly
to accost those who were once our friends by a familiar or nick-name
long "after the intimacy that formerly justified it has vanished. But
sometimes we intentionally revert to the use of such a name, not wishing
to proclaim openly, as it were, by a more formal address that we are no
longer the friends we once were. I think this latter was the case with
Mr. Gaskell as he repeated the familiar name.

"Johnnie, I was passing down New College Lane, and heard the violin from
your open windows. You were playing the 'Areopagita,' and it all sounded
so familiar to me that I thought I must come up. I am not interrupting
you, am I?"

"No, not at all," John answered.

"It is the last night of our undergraduate life, the last night