lt much less on his own
defeat than on the disappointment which he knew it would cause to Violet
and his young brothers. He knew well that Mrs Home would bear it with
equanimity, because she regarded all the events of life, however
painful, with the same quiet resignation, and trusted ever in the gentle
dealing and loving purposes of His hand who guides them all. Poor
Julian longed to be able to regard it in this light too, but he had
suffered the angry part of his nature to gain the victory, and his human
reason was now being torn by his lion heart.

Unable to endure the notion of going to hall, which would be a painful
reminder that the opportunity to which he had long looked for
emancipation from his sizarship had passed by, he determined to take
some wine, in the hope that it would support him till the evening. He
could not of course afford to give wine parties, but he always kept a
few bottles in his rooms for medicinal purposes, or to offer to any
stranger who might come to visit him. Taking out a decanter, he sat
down in his armchair, and drank a glass or two. The wine exhilarated
him; as he had scarcely tasted anything all day, it got rapidly into his
head, and in a few minutes his thoughts seemed in a tumult of delirious
emotion. Pride and passion triumphed over every other feeling; after
all, what was the scholarship to him? Tush! he looked for better things
in life than scholarships. He would discard the petty successes of
pedantry, and would seek a loftier greatness. He had been a fool to
trouble himself about such trifles. And as these arrogant mists clouded
his fancy, he broke out into irregular snatches of unmeaning song.

It was a saint's-day evening, and consequently chapel was at a quarter
past six instead of six, and the undergraduates wore surplices in chapel
instead of their ordinary gowns. On saints'-days there is always a
choral service at Saint Werner's College, and the excellence of the
choir generally attracted a large congregation. To Julian, who was fond
of music, these saint's-day services had a peculiar interest; and now
while his brain was swimming with the fumes of wine, he determined to go
to chapel, and imagined to himself the pleasure he should feel in
striding haughtily through the throng of men up the long aisle to the
sizar's seat, to show by his look and manner that his courage was
undaunted, and that his self-confidence rose superior to defeat.
Although the chapel-bel