r
getting on with so little money, but the greater number of dwellers in
the labyrinth would have considered one-half of their expenditure to be
an exceeding measure of affluence, and so doubtless any domestic tyranny
which had been experienced by Ernest was a small thing to what the
average Johnian sizar had had to put up with.

A few would at once emerge on its being found after their first
examination that they were likely to be ornaments to the college; these
would win valuable scholarships that enabled them to live in some degree
of comfort, and would amalgamate with the more studious of those who were
in a better social position, but even these, with few exceptions, were
long in shaking off the uncouthness they brought with them to the
University, nor would their origin cease to be easily recognisable till
they had become dons and tutors. I have seen some of these men attain
high position in the world of politics or science, and yet still retain a
look of labyrinth and Johnian sizarship.

Unprepossessing then, in feature, gait and manners, unkempt and
ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described, these poor fellows
formed a class apart, whose thoughts and ways were not as the thoughts
and ways of Ernest and his friends, and it was among them that Simeonism
chiefly flourished.

Destined most of them for the Church (for in those days "holy orders"
were seldom heard of), the Simeonites held themselves to have received a
very loud call to the ministry, and were ready to pinch themselves for
years so as to prepare for it by the necessary theological courses. To
most of them the fact of becoming clergymen would be the _entree_ into a
social position from which they were at present kept out by barriers they
well knew to be impassable; ordination, therefore, opened fields for
ambition which made it the central point in their thoughts, rather than
as with Ernest, something which he supposed would have to be done some
day, but about which, as about dying, he hoped there was no need to
trouble himself as yet.

By way of preparing themselves more completely they would have meetings
in one another's rooms for tea and prayer and other spiritual exercises.
Placing themselves under the guidance of a few well-known tutors they
would teach in Sunday Schools, and be instant, in season and out of
season, in imparting spiritual instruction to all whom they could
persuade to listen to them.

But the soil of the more prospero