whole family combined, to fight
against. My sisters would be knocking at the door every half hour, if
only to ask how I was getting on: Bob would tease me to come out
skating, and Charles would start me perpetually after wild-ducks or
woodcocks. And you yourself, sir, if I am not much mistaken, would think
it odd if I didn't take a ride with you as usual after breakfast. Then
one can't be expected to crawl about one's books by candlelight on a
winter's morning; and after a six o'clock dinner who can read? After tea
you know, sir, my mother always likes a rubber when I'm at home; and if
you are going to have those girls, Jane and Sophy, down this
Christmas"----

"Ah! well--I see, Frank; I'm afraid it's a hopeless case. Perhaps you
had better stay up at Oxford after all; you won't have much to disturb
you there, I suppose. If you don't get moped to death, I certainly don't
see what's to hinder your reading. You don't feel inclined to try North
Wales in the winter, I suppose, eh?"

"No, sir," said I, swallowing a last glass of Madeira at a gulp, and
rising, to cut short a conversation which was beginning to take rather
an awkward turn--"No, sir, not exactly."

"Why, I don't know, Frank: why not? you'd find the climate cooler, you
know," persevered the governor, as he followed me into the drawing-room.

So in Oxford it was settled that I should stay; a tolerable character
for the last term or two, and the notorious fact that I was going up at
Easter, ostensibly for a class, obtained me the necessary permission:
strange that, in the University, one should require leave to read! My
friends, John Brown and Harry Chesterton, were to stay up too; and we
promised ourselves some hours of hard work, and many merry ones
together. The vice-principal and one of the juniors, the only fellows
that would be in residence, were both gentlemen, and always treated the
under-graduates as such; we should get rid of the eternal rounds of beef
and legs of mutton that figured at the commoners' table in hall; there
would be no morning chapel; and altogether, having had nearly enough of
the noisy gayety of a full term, we looked forward to the novelty of a
few quiet weeks in college with a degree of pleasure which surprised
even ourselves.

But alas! under-graduates are but mortals, and subject to somewhat more
than the ordinary uncertainties of mortal life. It wanted but a week to
the end of term; all our plans were settled. Brown was to mig