for honors. They go in, in
alphabetical order, four a day, for one more day's work, the
hardest of all, and then there is nothing more to do but wait
patiently for the class list. On these days there is a good
attendance in the enclosed space to which the public are
admitted. The front seats are often occupied by the private
tutors of the candidates, who are there, like Newmarket trainers,
to see the performance of their stables, marking how each colt
bears pressing, and comports himself when the pinch comes. They
watch the examiners, too, carefully to see what line they take,
whether science or history, or scholarship is likely to tell
most, that they may handle the rest of their starts accordingly.
Behind them, for the most part on the hindermost benches of the
flight of raised steps, anxious younger brothers and friends sit,
for a few minutes at a time, flitting in and out in much unrest,
and making the objects of their solicitude more nervous than ever
by their sympathy.

It is now the afternoon of the second day of the _viva voce_
examinations in honors. Blake is one of the men in. His tutor,
Hardy, Grey, Tom, and other St. Ambrose men, have all been in the
schools more or less during his examination, and now Hardy and
Tom are waiting outside the doors for the issuing of the
testamurs.

The group is small enough. It is so much of course that a
class-man should get his testamur that there is no excitement
about it; generally the man himself stops to receive it.

The only anxious faces in the group are Tom's and Hardy's. They
have not exchanged a word for the last few minutes in their short
walk before the door. Now the examiners come out and walk away
towards their colleges, and the next minute the door again opens
and the clerk of the schools appears with a slip of paper in his
hand.

"Now you'll see if I am not right," said Hardy, as they gathered
to the door with the rest. "I tell you there isn't the least
chance for him."

The clerk read out the names inscribed on the testamurs which he
held, and handed them to the owners.

"Haven't you one for Mr. Blake of St. Ambrose?" said Tom
desperately as the clerk was closing the door.

"No, sir; none but those I have just given out," answered the
clerk, shaking his head. The door closed, and they turned away in
silence for the first minute.

"I told you how it would be," said Hardy, as they passed out of
the south gate into the Ratcliff Quadrangle.

"But