he chiefs, laughing and consulting, and speculating on the
chances of the coming races. No, stay, there is one other man
they must make room for. Here he comes, rather late, in a very
glossy hat, the only man in the room not in cap and gown. He
walks up and takes his place by the side of the host as a matter
of course; a handsome, pale man, with a dark, quick eye,
conscious that he draws attention wherever he goes, and
apparently of the opinion that it is right.

"Who is that who has just come in in beaver?" said Tom, touching
the next man to him.

"Oh, don't you know? that's Blake; he's the most wonderful fellow
in Oxford," answered his neighbor.

"How do you mean?" said Tom.

"Why, he can do everything better than almost anybody, and
without any trouble at all. Miller was obliged to have him in the
boat last year, though he never trained a bit. Then he's in the
eleven, and is a wonderful rider, and tennis-player, and shot."

"Ay, and he's so awfully clever with it all," joined in the man
on the other side. "He'll be a safe first, though I don't believe
he reads more than you or I. He can write songs, too, as fast as
you can talk nearly, and sings them wonderfully."

"Is he of our College, then?"

"Yes, of course, or he couldn't have been in our boat last year."

"But I don't think I ever saw him in chapel or hall"

"No, I daresay not. He hardly ever goes to either, and yet he
manages never to get hauled up much, no one knows how. He never
gets up now till the afternoon, and sits up nearly all night
playing cards with the fastest fellows, or going round singing
glees at three or four in the morning."

Tom sipped his port and looked with great interest at the
admirable Crichton of St. Ambrose's; and, after watching him a
few moments said in a low voice to his neighbor,

"How wretched he looks! I never saw a sadder face."

Poor Blake! one can't help calling him "poor," although he
himself would have winced at it more than any name you could have
called him. You might have admired, feared, or wondered at him,
and he would have been pleased; the object of his life was to
raise such feelings in his neighbors; but pity was the last which
he would like to excite.

He was indeed a wonderfully gifted fellow, full of all sorts of
energy and talent, and power and tenderness; and yet, as his face
told only too truly to anyone who watched him when he was
exerting himself in society, one of the most wretched men in