"Well, then, we may as well get back," said Tom, who was not
sorry for his friend's decision. So they paid their bill and
started for home, taking the Hawk's Lynch on the way, that Hardy
might see the view.

"And what did you find out about young Winburn?" he said as they
passed down the street.

"Oh, no good," said Tom; "he was turned out, as I thought, and
has gone to live with an old woman on the heath here, who is no
better than she should be; and none of the farmers will employ
him.

"You didn't see him, I suppose?"

"No, he is away with some of the heath people, hawking besoms and
chairs about the country. They make them when there is no harvest
work, and loaf about in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and
other counties, selling them."

"No good will come of that sort of life, I'm afraid."

"No, but what is he to do?"

"I called at the lodge as I came away, and saw Patty and her
mother. It's all right in that quarter. The old woman doesn't
seem to think anything of it, and Patty is a good girl, and will
make Harry Winburn, or anybody else, a capital wife. Here are
your letters."

"And the locket?"

"I quite forgot it. Why didn't you remind me of it? You talked of
nothing but the letters this morning."

"I'm glad of it. It can do no harm now, and as it is worth
something, I should have been ashamed to take it back. I hope
she'll put Harry's hair in it soon. Did she seem to mind giving
up the letters?"

"Not very much. No, you are lucky there. She will get over it."

"But you told her that I am her friend for life, and that she is
to let me know if I can ever do anything for her?"

"Yes. And now I hope this is the last job of the kind I shall
ever have to do for you."

"But what bad luck it has been? If I had only seen her before, or
known who she was, nothing of all this would have happened."

To this Hardy made no reply; and the subject was not alluded to
again in their walk home.

A day or two afterwards they returned to Oxford, Hardy to begin
his work as fellow and assistant-tutor of the College, and Tom to
see whether he could not make a better hand of his second year
than he had of his first. He began with a much better chance of
doing so, for he was thoroughly humbled. The discovery that he
was not altogether such a hero as he had fancied himself, had
dawned upon him very distinctly by the end of his first year; and
the events of the long vacation had confirmed the impression, and
p